#deakinscience

[invertophiles]

Redback Spider (Latrodectus hasseltii Thorell, 1870), a theridiid, a group known for their often colourful abdominal patterns. In Australia there are only around 100 species described (of theridiids, not redbacks!) with another 400 species estimated to be undescribed. Many are small and relatively inconspicuous compared with the often seen redback. Last night I counted 9 outside my back door - they like my cacti. I guess it's a safe place to build a web and retreat. Am I worried they are going to creep inside and bite me in my sleep? No, you'd be a fool the think such things. Red backs rarely leave their safe web and bites are extremely rare.

One of the Many lovely Little red-backed Things!

[invertophiles]

Many Little Plants: Dandenong Ranges Liverworts

Sunday was a great day in the Dandenongs. Cosy and tonnes of invert activity in the early Spring weather. For a little while I was distracted by these fertile liverworts which were common on rotten logs and lower tree trunks of mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans). Mostly they are like the lower image with the capsule still present or like the middle image with the spores released, but I was lucky to find a single specimen with the capsule freshly opened and the spores yet to be released (top).

Bryophytes are some of the Many Little Things too!

[invertophiles]

Sunday Afternoon at Kallista: Happy Little Springtails.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the Dandenong Ranges National Park at Kallista. I didn't move more than 10 metres in the whole 4 hours and was within a 20 metres of a major road. I was rewarded for my stasis with about 200 reasonable invert and other little things images. These are the springtails (Collembola). I could have stayed weeks and continued to get fresh things to take pictures of.

Perhaps my favorite (and I think that of many collembolaphiles) is the lovely, distinctive, springtail genus Acanthanura (middle). This genus belongs to the neanurid subfamily Uchidanurinae which has representatives in Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Micronesia and southeast Asia. Acanthanura itself is reasonably common in and under rotting wood in wet forest habitats in southeastern Australia and Tasmania.