Mr. (or Mrs. ) Crow

 

For being so plain and impossible to tell apart, crows are very interesting. Maybe that's because they seem to find us interesting. At least they have a lot to say to each other about human activity.

They generally pick the highest point around to do this watching and commenting.

When the caw goes out, confederates come to the party. Almost any excuse will do.

They never do anything alone or quietly.

Their jousting matches have an all for one, one for all atmosphere. What looks like a fight might actually be teamwork to dismember a crab.

Because crows are very smart, and they're usually up to something. Wikipedia reports their ratio of brain size to body size is similar to apes and just slightly below humans. When compared to dogs and cats in an experiment testing ability to seek out food from three-dimensional clues, the crows out-performed the mammals.

Extended youth and a comical spirit help with group survival, but make for raucous behavior annoying to anyone trying to sleep in on a Saturday morning.

All that playful training helps develop the combat skills and moxie to take on adversaries.

Even a swivel-necked Snowy Owl has trouble watching everywhere at once.

Of course, what goes around comes around. The nimble sprinters of the air take care of their own.

Even if I can't tell them apart, Mr. and Mrs. Crow do it very affectionately and disappear into the crown of a tall evergreen to build their nest.

Mr. Crow diligently brings home the bacon and every other kind of delectable to the growing family. Soon the youngsters will be on the wing to watch for roadside casualties on Granite Street and scraps at the Lobster Pool, as well as rough and tumble tidbits in meadows and moors.

Heroic Ascent

 

As I lay in the grass at Halibut Point watching a fellow traveler clamber through the meadowy jungle to its destiny, I seemed to hear strains of the Richard Strauss tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra." It had been woven into stirring moments in such films as Being There and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

That music bursts onto the screen with brass and tympani bombast when Chauncey Gardner (Peter Sellers) emerges from his grandmother's cocooned estate into the urban complexities of Washington, D.C.

There was a great world out there waiting to be discovered and navigated, but no safety net.

Producer Stanley Kubrick opened 2001 with that same music accompaniment to his "Dawn of Man" scene. A troop of pre-humans was investigating their environment.

Kubrick used Homer's The Odyssey as a source of inspiration for the title. He said, "It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of the sea must have had the same sort of mystery and remoteness....The film is basically a visual, nonverbal experience [that] hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting."

Dermacentor variabilis - American Dog Tick

The protagonist we have been tracking at Halibut Point is a young arachnid on its own unaccompanied journey through unknown terrain, fulfilling an implanted destiny.

At last it reaches a promontory where it can await an opportunity to nourish itself and its unborn progeny.

The Star Child approaching Earth

Stanley Kubrick brought the symphonic drama of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" back at the end of his film when the Star Child began a new dawn scenario of birth and discovery as it approached Earth. According to co-writer Arthur C. Clarke, Kubrick was "determined to create a work of art which would arouse the emotions of wonder, awe ... even, if appropriate, terror." 

In the final scenes the music takes a lilting turn into Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz". We are left to contemplate possibilities, favors, and fates.

Spiders in Mythology

 

Encounters with spiders at Halibut Point often have a dreamlike quality. The sightings may show their mysterious doings more than the creatures themselves. For their own protection spiders tend to work in darkness. We see the evidence on misty days when droplets  condense around gossamer webs.

These achievements from a tiny being in nature provokes our aesthetic and engineering wonder. Spiders have inspired liminal stories in all cultures of the world, from creation myths to diabolic horror tales.

In part this is because spiders lead a predatory life. They capture and harvest other life to feed themselves. As do we.

Misumena vatia, Goldenrod Crab Spider with fly 

Life-taking habits and prowess leads to some ambivalence and awe in our regard for masterful predators.

Gea heptagon, Orb Weaver

The web-making ability of spiders has fascinated people since the beginning of time, and has been a metaphoric thread of meaningful stories the world over, weaving adventure, achievement, and shades of human character with the art of imagination. Some of these have been artfully presented on the website "AncientOrigins: Reconstructing the Story of Humanity's Past".

Arachne the Weaver

In ancient Greek legend, the world’s first spider was born from the pride of a woman.The mortal Arachne was gifted in the art of weaving fine cloth and tapestries, and studied under the goddess Athena, herself a master at weaving and pottery. Arachne’s work was so beautiful, and her talent so great, that word of her weaving spread far and wide. Eventually, pride and arrogance led Arachne to boast that her work was even better than Athena’s. In a contest to determine who was the better artist – the mortal or the goddess - Arachne wove a tapestry depicting the gods in a bad light, detailing their debauchery and foolishness. The goddess Athena was furious and, in a rage, destroyed Arachne’s work.

Arachne, horrified and ashamed to realize where her hubris had taken her, hanged herself. Athena, feeling that the mortal had learned the error of challenging the gods, turned the hanging rope into web, and Arachne into a spider, so she might weave beautiful creations for all time. This is the origin of the word arachnid, a term we use for spiders to this day.

 

Hentzia palmarum, Dark-legged Long-jawed Jumping Spider

My previous spider postings have drawn responses from "creepy" to "exquisite".  That range pretty well follows the pattern of mythological portrayals. 

Creator and Destroyer

In ancient India, it is written that a large spider wove the web that is our universe. She sits at the centre of the web, controlling things via the strings. In legend it is said she will one day devour the web/universe, and spin another in its place.

Egyptian mythology tells of the goddess Neith - a spinner and weaver of destiny - and associates her with the spider. She is often depicted with a weaving shuttle in her hand, or a bow and arrows, demonstrating her hunting abilities.

Egyptian Goddess of Weaving

The website article goes on to relate accounts of the spider as a trickster god in West Africa; portrayed in sacred rocks and ceremonies among indigenous people in Australia; revered as a keeper of wisdom and weaver of the first men and women in certain Native American cosmologies.

Habronattus decorus, Beautiful Ornamented Jumping Spider

In many traditions spiders are good omens and helpful saviors. An ancient Chinese folk culture dubbed them “happy insects” bringing happiness in the morning, and wealth in the evening. Others considered them lucky tokens for the hunt.

It must be admitted that the physical characteristics enabling a spider's remarkable abilities give us pause, and relief that their size is so much smaller than ours.

Dark Dangers

Spiders cannot shake their frightening aspect, and many folktales warn of the dangerous traits associated with spiders, such as ensnaring webs, lies and deceits, lethal venoms, silent attacks, and creeping terror. In Japan the Spider Princess, a mythological spider figure called Jorōgumo, is able to transform into a seductive woman who entraps travelling samurai. The Spider Princess has many names, such as “binding bride” or “prostitutespider”. Jorōgumo morphs into a beautiful woman to beguile warriors into marrying her. Sometimes the Spider Princess appears to carry a baby, which turns out to be her egg-sack.

Spider Princess

The modern superhero Spider-Man is one of the most popular and iconic comic book characters of all time and one of the most popular characters in all fiction. He is written into stories entertaining‒and rescuing‒ humans with  extraordinary powers and awareness while presenting an alien, menacing appearance. That duality has both horrified and fascinated our species forever.

Pardosa sp. of Thin-legged Wolf Spider carrying her egg case

One Halibut Point correspondent wrote to me, "I've always respected them because I knew they were good for gardens, but didn't have the chance to delve into their finer details." Another enjoyed the spider portrait from my bathroom wall, where it still holds court.

Spider Kin

Spider origins go far back in the web of life. Physical clues to their development and relationships are traced in specimens preserved for hundreds of millions of years in ancient amber, as well as by the very latest genome sequencing. This is the domain of arachnologists, spider experts, who extend the 'family tree' to bring all arachnids under the tent. 

Arachnids are arthropods (invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages) with eight legs. 

A startlingly close relative of arachnids is the horseshoe crab, which swims in the waters around Halibut Point. It has many more biological similarities to spiders than insects do, which are also arthropods but generally have six legs and two pairs of wings. Further away in construction, and closer to insects, are the crustaceous lobsters.

Orchard Spider

Spiders have a distinct abdomen that is separated from their singular head-thoracic region (cephalothorax) by a constriction, and they usually have four pairs of eyes.

Like most arachnids, spiders lack extensor muscles in the distal (further) joints of their appendages. They extend their limbs hydraulically by applying pressure to bodily fluids. This even accounts for the remarkable leaping ability of jumping spiders.

An Opiolione (Harvestman)

Harvestmen, although similar in appearance to spiders, proceeded along a different evolutionary plan. They are distinguished by their fused body regions and single pair of eyes in the middle of their cephalothorax.

Another distinction is that some harvestmen extend their knees by the use of highly elastic thickenings in the joint cuticle, while others have evolved muscles that extend two leg joints (the femur-patella and patella-tibia joints) at once. 

To see them glide like a gondola suspended from, and directing, those inquisitive legs is to enjoy one of nature's exquisite ballets.

Daddy Longlegs (true spider) in my bathroom

Harvestmen look superficially like the companionable Daddy Longlegs, which features a two-segmented body, cylindrical abdomen, and eight eyes of a true spider.

 

Within the arachnids, two broad groups of mites are represented at Halibut Point.

A Velvet Mite, an arachnid, beside a blade of grass

Velvet mites represent the Arcariforme group of soft-bodied mites that ingest solid food such as fungi, algae, and soft-bodied invertebrates.

A Dog Tick, an arachnid

Dog ticks are a common example of the Parasitiformes which derive nutrients at the expense of other organisms without directly killing or ingesting them. 

Crustaceans making up a prominent group of non-arachnid arthropods are found both on land and in the sea. They are distinguished by limbs that branch into two, each branch developing a series of segments attached end-to-end.

Woodlouse, a crustacean

Despite their unpleasant common name 'woodlice' fascinate children and make easy-care terrarium (or Dixie cup) pets where they inspire affectionate names such as roly-poly or pill bug. 

In the final notable group of Arthropods at Halibut Point are the terrestrial Myriapods characterized by numerous body segments, each of which bears one or two pairs of seven-segmented walking legs. 

Centipede, a myriapod

Millipede, a myriapod

Exploring the intricacies of natural history, to the level of your interest, makes for interesting reading in the era of Wikipedia and online journal articles.