{"id":675,"date":"2020-12-31T03:36:06","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T03:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/?p=675"},"modified":"2021-01-01T23:06:12","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T23:06:12","slug":"fool-me-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/2020\/12\/31\/fool-me-once\/","title":{"rendered":"Fool Me Once… A Cautionary Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Or, in this case, fool me twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months back, I was “vetting” some photographs that had been submitted to the North Carolina Biodiversity Project’s Arachnid page<\/a> when I came across this photo, submitted as possibly being Agelenopsis pennsylvanica<\/em> (C. L. Koch, 1843), one of the grass spiders (sometimes called “funnel weavers”) of the family Agelenidae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>A Grass Spider<\/caption><\/center>\n\n\n\n

Now, right off, it didn’t look to be Agelenopsis<\/em> to me, for a number of reasons, none of which are easy to specify–it just didn’t look right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When all one has is a photo, though, identifications can get tricky, and–my not being from ’round these parts–I didn’t recognize what seemed to me to be what should be a readily identified species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am generally hesitant to start searching online photo collections looking and hoping for a match: After all, not only do many spiders look similar, but online photos can be misidentified. So, I did the next logical thing: I asked a highly experienced person also working on the project if he had any thoughts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He immediately responded with a likely ID of Barronopsis texana<\/em> (Gertsch, 1934), another agelenid genus known from NC…and he was spot on, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As B. texana<\/em> was a species which I’d never seen (or even heard of) before, I naturally did some literature searching to learn something about it. First off, I learned why I was unfamiliar with it: It occurs from NC south through Florida, thence west into Texas: All my collecting has been in the Midwest and Northeast, so I’d simply never come across Barronopsis<\/em> before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, armed with this knowledge, I was ready for my next encounter, right? Um…no, this is where the “fool me twice” bit kicks in, I’m embarrassed to admit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of months later, a neighbor brought a living spider to me, about which I immediately proclaimed (in my very best know-it-all-tones) “that’s an immature wolf spider!” and then–using the Occam’s Razor Theory of Spider Identification–promptly guessed at a species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, I’m sure you see where this is going! When I got it under the microscope it was immediately clear that this was not a lycosid (wolf) spider at all, much less the species I had guessed. Nope, wrong family altogether, its being (as you’ve no doubt already surmised) another of the agelenid Barronopsis texana<\/em>, of which I had so recently been totally ignorant–and, sadly, had apparently remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption>Barronopsis texana<\/i> I misidentified!<\/figure><\/center>\n\n\n\n

But, my suffering this ignominy did, at least, lead to a happy ending. A few weeks later, I was visiting a relative’s house some miles away when I found a spider molt skin having familiar markings. I looked around and found funnel webs on a building wall, from which webs I captured an adult female and<\/em> an adult male B. texana<\/em>. And this time I got it right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"Female(L) and male(R) Barronopsis texana<\/i><\/figure><\/center>\n\n\n\n

Morals of the story:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. No matter how much I think I know, there is always someone who knows a lot more.<\/li>
  2. Don’t hesitate to say “I’m not sure–let me get a closer look”.<\/li>
  3. This is a very cool species!<\/li>
  4. It’s so much fun to learn new things!<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<\/font>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Or, in this case, fool me twice. A few months back, I was “vetting” some photographs that had been submitted to the North Carolina Biodiversity Project’s Arachnid page when I came across this photo, submitted as possibly being Agelenopsis pennsylvanica … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":700,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Arthroblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}