MR IIIIIIII!

Day 301: (I thought I had lost this verbal puzzle forever, but after three tries, I managed to boot up my ancient, retired laptop in the hopes that that's where it was. Enjoy!)

MR spiders.
MR not!
OSMR spiders...
CDBD iiiiiiii?
OSICDBD iiiiiiii!
SMR spiders!

In this case, the spider in question is Misumena vatia (Goldenrod Crab Spider), and UcanCDBD iiiiiiii...or at least the front two as little brown dots. Spiders have eight, and I'm not talking about legs. I'm talking about iiiiiiii..."eyes," the better to see you with, my dear. Now imagine a tiny spider with a tiny, tiny brain, processing information coming in from eight sides. You, human, only have to worry about two (and some of you have trouble with that, especially if you're using your cell phone while driving). A spider's peripheral vision is what makes it such a formidable hunter, and can be demonstrated by trying to sneak up on one from behind. You've probably noticed that they change position when they detect movement, bringing at least one more eye into play. You have to wonder if spiders ever feel smug about their abilities like humans do. In the visual game, spiders are definitely on top.

Misumena Vatia

Day 312: Misumena vatia is known commonly as the Flower Crab Spider or Goldenrod Crab Spider because that's where you usually find members of the species hunting or waiting for their prey. They do not construct webs, tunnels or nests in which to over-winter. Their colouration is highly variable from nearly white to banana yellow, and an individual spider's hue may become brighter over a period of two to three weeks as yellow pigments are secreted into the outer layer of its body's cellular structure. If the spider moves to a white flower, the reverse occurs more quickly (approximately six days) as the pigment is excreted. The sides of the body may be marked with brown or red. Misumena vatia's venom is particularly toxic to bees. Its other favoured prey species include butterflies, wasps and grasshoppers.

Misumena Vatia, Golden Crab Spider

Day 298: Sorry to spring this on the arachnophobes in my audience without any forewarning, but trust me, I fall within your numbers. That does not stop me from appreciating the clever beauty of Misumena vatia, the Goldenrod Crab Spider so common in Pacific Northwest gardens. Misumena exhibits quite a range of colour variation from solid yellow to a gold heavily striped with red, a factor which renders it relatively unnoticeable when it's perched on an orangey-gold Rudbeckia flower. This female (note the large abdomen) took me entirely by surprise when I bent over to turn on the water tap. After I began breathing again, I retrieved the camera from the house, but she was not exactly enthusiastic about having her portrait made. Although I was careful not to allow my shadow to fall across her, she waved her forearms at me menacingly. I took the picture and the hint, and left her in peace. Sometimes using a foe's fear against themselves is the best defense. Misumena wins this round.

Concealment

Day 202: While walking around in my yard yesterday, I spotted a specimen of Misumena vatia on a dandelion, but my shadow fell across the flower as I knelt down to take a picture, startling the spider and sending it into concealment. I went out again today and on the same dandelion, saw what I presume to be the same spider, but once again, some vibration or fluctuation in the light alerted it to potential danger and it disappeared beneath the petals where it was out of sight from my eyes, but not from my lens. This species has often taken me by surprise when I've gathered ox-eye daisies (an invasive which should carry no guilt about picking) or other light-coloured flowers. It has a particular affinity for dandelions in western Washington and although its colouration is highly variable, the whitish-yellow form is arguably the most common. The pigmentation observed in any individual spider can change over the course of a few days, depending on the colour of the flower it inhabits.

Forsythia Defender

Day 154: Misumena vatia (Crab Spider)was identified for me by a friend who knows about such things. Me, I steer as widely as possible from anything with eight legs, so I nearly jumped out of my skin when part of the forsythia stepped forward for its portrait. It's not that I'm afraid of spiders, although it took a while for me to decondition myself from a dread instilled by my mother who panicked at the sight of even a small one. She grew up in Black-Widow country, so you could hardly blame her. Still, I like some warning that an encounter is forthcoming. If they take me by surprise, I freak. It's an odd thing for a naturalist to admit, but although I know they're helpful in the garden, I don't really like them.

Hidden In Plain Sight

Day 310: You really don't want to go sticking your nose in the daisies around here. You never know who might be living there. Misumena vatia, the Crab Spider, is a master of camouflage, although its ability to change hue requires a protracted stay on the flower its coloration mimics. When it moves to a white or pale green blossom, it slowly excretes the yellow pigment normally found in the outer layer of cells. These spiders are very common in the Pacific Northwest, but are often overlooked because of their chameleonic talents.

Daisy Defender

Day 255: I have a photographer friend to thank for identifying the Daisy Defender for me. It is a Crab Spider (Misumena vatia), and this specimen must surely be a female because it is so plump. Thank you kindly, I have no aspirations to becoming an arachnologist, although I have overcome my abject horror of spiders to the degree that now they only make me mildly uncomfortable when I encounter them in their own environment. That said, the door is the dividing line between Theirs and Mine, and the only exception I make to taking extreme measures is when I find a Daddy Longlegs. Those I will politely remove and put out of doors where all good spiders should stay.

My fear of spiders was instilled in me by my mother. We lived in the Yakima Valley when I was very young, and the words "Black Widow" were on everyone's lips in the farming community. My mother was an arachnophobe of the first water, and one morning when I went out to play in the sandbox just off our back step, she spotted a Black Widow in the corner. Her panicked reaction which included shrieking, violent physical movements and vividly colored swear-words as well as a firm yank on my small arm told me then and there that spiders were something far worse than the Kidnapper Who Lived By The Railroad Track (a device she used to keep me from wandering too far from home). She did not dispatch the Black Widow, so deep was her alarm; no, she called my father home from work to take care of the grisly deed. I was not allowed in the back yard for some weeks thereafter while he reasoned with her about the likelihood of seeing another Black Widow. It was not as if they were a creature commonly found in open areas.

Nevertheless, my dread of arachnids stayed with me until I was in my 20s, and then I sought to combat it with familiarization techniques. Rescuing Daddy Longlegs spiders was the first step. Even so, if a little black sideways-walker were to drop on me from the ceiling today, I would be likely to have a full-blown case of the heebie-jeebies. Walking into a faceful of newly hatched garden spiders in a veil slung from the top sill of my front door sends me straight to the shower and my skin crawls for hours afterwards, and unfortunately takes me by surprise almost annually. If the Daisy Defender hadn't been so busy concentrating on the small bug and had raised its arm toward the lens, I might well have gone ass-over-teakettle backwards as instinct took control over reason.