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Project Noah Nature School
It's difficult to remember, but I think I recall them looking very soft. It had also been raining a lot that week, so everything had a dewy, shimmering surface.
I'm going to tentatively suggest Nephila pilipes, a Golden Orb Spider. GREAT shot!
Would I be right to assume that this is the same species as in this other unidentified spotting? Both are located in Mexico. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/159...
I'm working on it, but I'm having trouble finding a species name for it.
I'm going with the algae, Dunaliella salina. Any expert suggestions? (since mine are anything but expert, haha). I'm always learning new things.
Oh no, definitely not poison ivy. This would be some sort of fern, though I am not certain of which species. Beautiful fern. Do we have any botonists or pant lovers here to ID this?
By the way, here is an excellent photo reference for poison ivy, here on Noah. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/660...
There are a few different types of poison ivy, as well as certain color phases, but all of them have a cluster of precisely three tear-drop-shaped leaves at the end of each stalk coming off the main vine. The pattern is very easy to pick out. The photo at the link I provided is a shot of flowering poison ivy. It can have little white berries too.
Poison oak looks very similar, with three leaves per stalk, but with a different leaf shape.
Poison sumac can be somewhat difficult to identify, as its leaf formations look very similar to a host of harmless plants.
That's a rattler if I ever saw one. BEAUTIFUL specimen. What a photo. Such a graceful creature, but please keep your distance from these. I made the mistake of getting too close to one, and discovered that when coiled up like this, they can spring forward several feet. I support Scott's I.D.
The photo is too blurry to identify the particular species. However, due to its color, shape, and location, I can conclude that this is not venomous to humans. As far as I know (someone please add to this list if I am incorrect), there are only four species of spider in the US that are venomous enough to cause significant harm to humans (in other words, they have a bite that causes more than just a small red sore and/or minor bee-sting-like pain). These four would be the Black Widow, the Brown Widow, the Brown Recluse, and the Hobo Spider. In my experience, if you can identify the appearance and distribution (location) of these four species, you can simply avoid them and safely observe our vast majority of completely harmless spiders in the US.
