I’ve been making daily visits to check, and this elegant Green Lynx Spider, Peucetia viridans, has occupied the same leaf of the same American Germander plant for the last week. That Bugguide info page certainly has some interesting things to say about this species. It has been noted to spit venom up to a distance of 200mm (about 8 inches), in defense. There is a nice instar series as well. The browsing page has a neat division of photographs into eastern and western color variations.



I was confused until I looked it up on the blog and found that the lookalike wasn’t this species at all, but rather Magnolia Jumping Spider, observed 9 May 2007. I can be forgiven, for even the info page on green lynx tells us that this species at least once thought to be intermediate between the Salticids, true jumping spiders; and Oxyopids, true lynx spiders. As it turns out I did observe another lynx spider, the brown Oxyopes scalaris, on 11 June 2007, identified by Bev in comments.

Besides the hexagonal arrangement of eyes, it’s the long bristles on the legs that really scream “lynx.”



In other news, we’ve been getting small to significant amounts of rain each day this week. We’re now up a little over 2 inches for July. I’d forgotten how it is that even temperatures in the mid 80s can seem excessively hotter when the humidity is up around 60%.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has its Atlantic Hurricane seasonal outlook up now. Indications are for a normal to above normal season - they indicate the current estimate of total storms, named storms and major hurricanes. The two largest factors are the high Atlantic sea surface temperatures, and a diminishing but still effective La Niña, which enhances hurricane formation and development.