So, last weekend, Lori and I were at a doll meetup at McMenamins Edgefield, and I couldn't help but wander around and look under rocks and such. I was in the stand of trees in the center of the map in the above link and turned over a piece of wood, and guess what I found?
An Oregon Mygalomorph!
I was so freaking excited. I knew that Oregon had trapdoor spiders, but I'd never seen one, and heard they were almost IMPOSSIBLE to find. And here she was, just chillin' under a piece of wood with her burrow a few inches away.
I of course had to keep her. Lori took some awesome photos last night with our friends' camera -- I'll post those as soon as the camera owners upload them.
I showed her to a couple entomologists I know yesterday and they confirmed my suspicion that she was an
Antrodiaetus sp., and after doing a bit more research I'm pretty sure she's
A. pacificus. The one entomologist also confirmed that she's an adult female and told me they can easily live five years or so, and it's possible she's gravid. He ALSO said that they like to burrow into decaying wood, so today I'm going to go grab a chunk and get her a nice habitat set up.
Pics to follow soon!
Oh, and the ent folks told me that there's other species found in Oregon inhabiting clearcut areas that are large enough to tackle vertebrate prey! I TOTALLY have to find some of those.
(Completely random -- the Wiki article for McMenamins has a picture of one of the two pubs in Corvallis!
)
