Prowling After Dark

Ludivine (she/her 🏳️‍⚧️) Unconditional love for harvestmen.

[mastigusa]

A bit of additional info

Unless specified, all photos shared are mine. I will mostly post harvestmen but expect other invertebrates, mostly arachnids.

I'm French (do what you want with that information...), so pretty much all my observations are from over here.

I'll be happy to help with IDs as well if from Europe, I may not be of much help for elsewhere (but I can try !). If you do submit, please include at least a location and a date.

I'm on iNaturalist, you can find me here

Species in my profile picture is Ischyropsalis pyrenaea. The one in my header is Scotolemon doriae.

[mastigusa]

Forgot this account exists sorry, I'm not good at being active on two social media platform simultaneously.

Here's a freshly molted (?) Holoscotolemon querilhaci nymph. The only thing crawling under a stone almost too big and too heavy to move around, it didn't really felt rewarding.

[mastigusa]

The Pyrenean populations of Megabunus diadema are quite unique. In other places where it is well established (Scandinavia, UK, Ireland, and Northern France) males are rare due to the ability for females to reproduce via facultative parthenogenesis. In the Pyrenees, the sex-ratio is largely in favor of males, sometimes making up 70% of total individuals or more. (D'Amico)

Only one female observed (4th img) when I visited Cauterets last summer, and also the only individual to bear a little frontal spine, which is allegedly an uncommon variation.

I wish I could find more of these long-legged pixies but four in a day is already a treat. :o)