The Porch at Night

On these perfect evenings we like to sit out on the porch in the darkness and listen for whatever life might be present, crickets mostly, or a neighbor's dog barking (we like to imagine it's responding to the scent or sound of a creeping mountain lion). There's a weak light bulb on the porch that we turn on so we won't miss a big spider or some other such creature coming out into the open. It was how we discovered last year that we had a little colony of pocket mice on the porch. But last night the dim lighting turned up the most dramatic creature we had seen.

Something about the proportions of a smallish mouse slipped by virtually between our feet. I shouted for Cheryl to keep sight of it while I raced into the house and came out again with a glass jar to plop over it and put a note-card under it to close up the top. Cheryl turned the jar up level again and we looked inside. A creature was leaping about inside, most impressively crashing its impressive jaws at us so that we were glad they were inside the glass.

 

  

We examined it in the light. The colors cadaverous, it  looked rather like a dead maggot, but its eight legs showed relationship to spiders. It also had an extra, thicker pair of legs in front, which were not for walking, but for sensing things that it touches. Note the fat round head. Near the top of it is a tiny, touching-together, almost imbecilic pair of eyes looking straight up in the air. No wonder it needs sensitive forelegs. The front half of the head is divided into two bulging lumps which are in fact massive muscles for clamping down with their jaws which are, for their size, the most powerful jaws of almost any creature.

 

This is a Wind Spider, a Solifugid (the name means that it "runs from the sun"), and indeed they can run so fast they are difficult to see. There are about 200 species in North America, though not much is known about them. A couple of years ago I kept one as a pet  (a different species) for about a year, which is about as long as they live. Anything I put into its aquarium it tore to pieces and devoured. I haven't got this one to feed yet, but I hope I can eventually, so I can keep it for a while.