A page started October 2020, for non-insect arthropods, and so far growing very slowly.

Please don't take my IDs as authoritative. These pages of nature photos represent one person's voyage of discovery, not the studies of a trained expert. If you see something I've misidentified, please contact me via my "Contact" page, which is tabbed at the top.

Arachnida: Spiders and their Allies

Salticidae: Red-Backed Jumping Spider (Phidippus johnsoni)

Theridiidae: Western Black Widow (Latrodectus hesperus)

As I pulled an empty propane tank out from under my gas grill, I saw a spider about three inches from my hand. I took a few pictures, went online, and realized I'd had a close encounter with a black widow. I'd known about the all-black ones, with red hourglasses on their bellies, all my life. I hadn't known that immature black widows look very different from the adult females. Next time I reach under my grill, I'll be more careful.

Late one evening, about a month later, I saw a spider on the wall of my house and grabbed my camera. The picture is grainy because of the low light. This time it was a male (they're much smaller than the females), which may have been searching for a mate.  The black knobs at the front of the male are called pedipalps.

The Theridiidae are also known as the tangle-web spiders. That name doesn't adequately describe their range of spiderwebs but if you do find one that looks disorganized, be on the alert for black widows.

Thomisidae (?): Crab Spiders

Some spiders in families other than Thomisidae are referred to crab spiders, hence the question mark above. So far, both of my photos of crab spiders were inadvertent: I took a picture of something else and the spider happened to be there. Look in the lower right corner of my June 2020 picture for a a green, brown, and off-white crab spider (Mecaphesa). In my August 2021 picture of a marine blue butterfly, a white crab spider is enjoying its meal (a tiny bee or wasp) as the butterfly looks on. That spider might be Misumena vatia.

Malacostraca

Crayfish

My one photo of a crayfish thus far tells a story. After a bird found the crayfish, dead or alive, it took it to a concrete footbridge over an irrigation canal and ate the innards. It also pooped before flying off. New Mexico's crayfish include invasive species. I grew up calling them crawfish; you may have grown up calling them crawdads or some other name.