| Lizards and spiders and snakes Oh my!
I find the California desert intriguing. You don�t have to travel far from town in order to experience it�s wealth of insect and reptile life.
I happened upon it by accident while walking my dogs. As this was something I did on a daily basis, I began to learn about the bounty of strange and fascinating wildlife, the desert offers.
Snakes, particularly caught my attention when Pepper, my dog, would flush one out. How she escaped death by rattlesnake, is a miracle. I would hear the familiar sound of the alarmed rattler, and there would be Pepper, in striking distance. The snake rearing up like a cobra from the underbrush, weaving back and forth as if to hypnotize her. A big snake, I could tell from the height it reached and knowing there was a lot more of it on the ground! I would first, freeze and pray Pepper would get away and not try to attack it. She'd be frozen too. Just the rattler had the right to move at that moment. I watched my dog gradually shift her weight to her back end, as she seemed aware also, that death would be imminent, should the snake make contact. Then I'd nervously call her to me, in a high pitched voice that belied my true fear. She came slinking to my side wondering what she�d done wrong. Nothing, but given me a heart attack! We lived through several of those encounters in her fifteen years. I used to love to see the fresh snake tracks , first thing in the morning. Sometimes they were so huge, I just had to follow them to see the 'beast' they belonged to. Rarely was I disappointed. The Western Diamondback is a spectacularly beautiful snake, with it's diamond patern from head to tail, it's the tail portion that's so striking, with black and white bands around and up to the point where the rattles start. The bigger the snake, the more rattles and the deeper the tone emmitted from them. At least the one's I saw, in the foothills of Riverside County, were truly impressive, some over seven feet long and large in girth. While smaller and supposedly, less aggressive than it�s eastern counterpart, I�ve yet to see anything rival it. The King snake is a natural rival. A constrictor, it's immune to the venom of the rattler. But all the King snakes I saw, were fairly small in comparison to these huge rattlesnakes, and I wondered if they had outgrown even the threat of the King snake.
Some gopher snakes get to be huge and are nice to see, but being non venomous, they didn�t give me that feeling of trepidation I found exhilarating and addictive.
The smaller snakes were nice too, such as the Rosy Boa, which can be quite docile. I picked one up once, to get a closer look and it didn�t seem to mind.
By this time, I had done my usual - reading everything in the library about the local wildlife- so I knew what was venomous and what was �safe� to get a closer look at.
There were lizards too, that sunned themselves on the rocks. But I would have to view them through my binoculars, to get a closer look as they were too skittish. I was never really that interested in bugs till I moved to CA. Then I was so freaked out by them that I had to find out more about them. Thanks once again to the local library.
After a torrential downpour one night, I happened to look outside and saw the biggest �god-knows-what� I�ve ever seen. It was some kind of huge beetle I thought. With long legs and big feet like a weevil. It�s head seemed proportionally big for it's body. I thought it was a wind up toy! It had been flushed out of it�s underground home, by the heavy rain.
I found out the next day, it was a Jerusalem cricket, or potato bug, and they're apparently harmless and make quite good pets. (This thing should have been on a leash!) <><><><><><><><> "Coke or Pepsis"?
When I was about five years old, I remember being stung on the foot by a wasp that I was innocently watching fly about me and as if it were a butterfly, I allowed it to settle on me. Of course I was stung with a dose of reality and vividly remember screaming blue murder till my teacher came running to see what the matter was. Ever since then, I�ve had a phobia of bees and wasps. So, when I saw these huge,(about two and a half inches in lenghth!) blue-black, wasp shaped shiny things, flying around and even walking around on the desert floor, you�d think I would run a mile. But, I had to find out what they were. They had orange wings and didn�t seem to be bothered by my presence, (thank god, I have since learned that the sting of Pepsis, is considered to be the most painful sting of any insect in North America!) I watched them as they walked around, then took off like one of those vertical take off, Harrier jump jets, flew a few inches and landed, walking again. This time I watched it go into a hole in the ground, about the size of a gopher�s hole. This was weird, I had to find out what it was and what it was doing.
It was a Tarantula Hawk! Or, Pepsis-one of the largest if not �the� largest wasp. As the name implies, the female hunts tarantulas, stinging them-not killing- but paralyzing and laying a single egg on them. When the egg hatches, the larva eats the still living tarantula.
I�ve since seen them actually dragging the paralyzed tarantula-which is several times it�s size-into the hole in the ground for safekeeping. Smaller black wasps do the same kind of thing with smaller prey, but it�s all just as fascinating to a nature freak like me. <><><><><><><>� Want flies with that?�
Speaking of tarantulas, I remember the first time I saw one in the wild. It was that first year of living in CA and I was on a bike ride, in Corona, near the foothills.
This was before reading about the tarantula hawk, so I didn�t even know what lived around there. As I was cycling along a road that runs parallel to the 91 freeway, between Riverside and Orange counties, there was something walking across the road ahead about the size of a mouse, but clearly some type of bug. As I got closer I saw it was a huge hairy spider! Unlike any I�d seen before, as the one�s I had seen on tv, were brightly colored. I think, called Mexican redleg,( or is it redneck? ) No, I�m sure it�s redleg.
Anyhow, this one was brownish black, but big nonetheless. I wondered if it was an escaped pet- there didn�t seem to be any others around.
I wanted to �share� my find, so I picked up a burger container that was littering the roadside. One of those styrofoam boxes they used to put Big Mac�s in. It seemed a perfect size to carry this guy in. The only thing now was, how the hell do I pluck up the courage to get close enough to the tarantula to coax him in?! I knew there were poisonous spiders around there, like black widows and brown recluses, but I was fairly sure- from what I�d seen on tv-that tarantula's venom wasn't lethal.
So, I got a stick and waived it at him and �voila�! he jumped right in. Okay-not really-but he did eventually walk in and I snapped the lid shut.
I put the box in the little bag that hangs behind the bike seat, it has a zipper so I felt safe the spider wouldn�t escape and bite me on the bum!
I hurried home as I didn�t want to suffocate my prisoner. When I got home, my husband Martin, was outside working on the car, I called him over and told him I�d picked him up a burger at McDonald�s (looking back, somewhat sadistic) He took the box from me and opened it as I watched through eyes almost closed as I was cringing with fear. Luckily, tarantulas are lightweight and can withstand being hurled through the air at great speed, landing on concrete! As I�m writing this I have tears in my eyes, not for the poor spider, but for the look on Martin�s face when he realized what I�d done to him. I�m really not a bad person, but I do have a mischievous streak that continues to get me into trouble even now. ************
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