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Photo#293003
Thing on sidewalk (is a Webspinner!) - Haploembia solieri - male

Thing on sidewalk (is a Webspinner!) - Haploembia solieri - Male
Santa Clara, Santa Clara County, California, USA
June 22, 2009
On the sidewalk near the inside edge where some plants were. Very small, but somehow reminiscent of a pincher bug. Is this an adult? If so, then this is entirely new to me!

from Dean Rider:
"The image looks to be an adult male based on the shape of the head. I've never seen photos of C. rubra, but it is probably not C. rubra as the left cercus looks like it is missing a segment, rather than being fused and curved as described for C. rubra; C. rubra is also described as having a reddish body with a black head and terminalia, whereas this specimen has a mostly black body with only only a reddish prothoracic region. My best guess is that it is another example of the wingless male of H. solieri."

Moved from Webspinners.

 
male embiopteran
I just noticed this photograph and thought I should chime in. I study embiids, since the 1980's actually. The specimen in the photograph is a male Haploembia solieri. Sexual populations have grown quite large recently in the Bay Area. Previously one population in Redwood City was discovered by a student and reported on by Edward Ross. Recently, I have encountered them in Mt View and Santa Clara. It seems as if the use of mulch by landscapers has allowed them to spread. There are 1000's of them in the mulch at Ulistac Open Space, for example.
The asexual population is quite widespread; they do not exhibit the same behaviors as the sexuals in many ways. The sexual population has very large aggregations, and can even be seen walking in the open as in this photo of the wingless male. (BTW. My colleagues and I are proposing a new name for the asexuals as they appear to be a different species from the sexuals).

 
Thanks, for passing that along!
And what Dean said seems to make sense. It seems strange at first that the males have no wings. I guess this actually makes things handier for the females. Maybe one of these days I'll catch a glimpse at another one!

Embioptera!
A female webspinner, very nice find:)

 
Thanks for the lead!
This represents a new order of insect for me!

 
Chelicerca rubra?
From descriptions in a couple of articles I am thinking that this is Chelicerca rubra, described as having a reddish body and a black head. Both articles were from 1957, however, and may not be consistent with current knowledge. Still I am going to throw the species name out there (Chelicerca rubra) and move this to the webspinner page and hope that it will be reviewed by someone with some familiarity with this apparently pretty rare species!

Oh, I see it has already been moved! Thank you!

Here is the first reference, but I warn you, whoever prepared it for the internet did not know how to mesotint, or digitize photos, hence the photos are pretty useless:

http://essig.berkeley.edu/documents/cis/cis06_3.pdf

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