garden oddities
Out in the garden today: emptying the rat-infested compost bin, and generally cleaning up (while Becky did the real heavy work of digging the vege garden, heh heh!).
While removing all the long grass at the edge of the path I came across two interesting little animals.
Here’s the first:
I think it’s a harvestman of some sort: it’s an arachnid, but not a spider. It’s black, with some orange stripes. But the coolest feature is the huge… jaws? palps? Whatever, they’re fracking huge compared to the rest of it. I’ve posted the original nine photos I took of it on Flickr here. Have a look close up.
What exactly is it?
The second’s not quite as cool:
Down this path somewhere there’s a nest of these ants, which are a reddish colour and about double the size of the common black ants we usually see here (each gradation on the ruler is 0.5 mm). There are also some smaller red ants around too, I don’t know if they’re from the same mob or not.
I still have this one running around in a glass jar. Any ideas? Should I be worried about it being an exotic pest?
Alan
12 October 2005, 11:53 #
OK, I’ve had a reply from the arachnid expert at Te Papa, Dr Phil Sirvid. (I love how there’s always someone who can answer questions like this, it’s just fantastic.) Here’s what he said:
“That is indeed a harvestman, either of the genus Pantopsalis or Megalopsalis. It’s a native, and if you’ve got any bush at all nearby it’s no surprise to find one of these rather outlandish creatures. The impressive chelicerae (the big claw-like appendages you noticed) are very much a male feature. In females they are very much smaller. Nobody knows quite why this is the case, but it gets stranger still. Not only are there males with huge chelicerae, but a large portion of the male population of each species have comparatively small chelicerae. This doesn’t seem to affect them adversely. Another mystery of science!”
He then goes on to mention a great book on NZ spiders – which I have seen before and must purchase. (Looks like there’s a new edition available… and Christmas is coming! Cool!)
Not Rudd
25 October 2005, 03:16 #
Black ants are native. Red ants are introduced and more aggressive. The big ones are from the same mob and sometimes come with wings too!
Alan
25 October 2005, 06:15 #
I located the colony not so long ago: the ant above is, I think, a soldier. The workers are much smaller.
The Queens though, of which there were many in the colony, were of a similar size to the soldiers, and had a bulbous and stripy thorax.
Ben
9 January 2006, 17:10 #
Thanks for posting this. I found a harvestman very similar to this in my backyard (In Wellington) and have been trying to identify it. The big difference was slightly shorter, stouter and spiky chelicerae. I got a few good photos too. And thanks to Dr Phil Sirvid for the info, I’ll be checking out the book.
Alan
9 January 2006, 17:55 #
I got the spider book for Christmas, and I would recommend it. There’s some good info in there about these harvestmen.