Hi Tweets,

A couple of quick notes.

On the Iona South Jetty about a week ago, there was a strange centipede,
totally unfamiliar. Moving in very quick, flowing dashes like a really big
silverfish, the critter was about 2.5-3 cm long, very pale grey with some
slightly darker subtle banding, rhomboid in shape, with the widest
part--whether longest legs or widest body I couldn't tell--just behind the
head, then shortly tapering to a broadly pointed head at one end, a long
tapered body ending in a point at the tail. Couldn't see if it had antennae.
Never seen the like. Any ID ideas?

Second, one evening, in the outside stairwell of the house's side entrance I
use, there were *five* presumably-adult Pacific trap-door spiders, with two
in the outside stairwell of the basement apartment neighbors. Unusual
gathering. The first one ever recorded in the city of Vancouver BC proper
was taken from this very
stairwell about ten years ago, though they're apparently fairly common in
the surrounding mountains. There's usually one or two in the stairwell on
any summer night. Pretty unmistakeable: though they're slightly smaller than
the big leggy house spiders (Tegenaria?) which occasionally startle as one
lopes across the floor, they're definitely more muscular, like a small
tarantula or big wolf spider, with midnight black head, carapace and legs,
small brown bulbous abdomen.

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net