THE NATURAL MOMENT 



UP FRONT 



-< See preceding two pages 



Enthroned on a golden flower, 

 a female crab spider holds 

 dominion over most visitors that 

 stop to rest or refuel. But there's 

 not much pomp: no intricate web, 

 no hairy legs, no red hourglass. 

 Instead, the spider — weighing in 

 at about 0.005 ounce — hides in 

 ambush among the corridors of 

 her petal palace. Crab spiders cam- 

 ouflage themselves superbly, usual- 

 ly matching the color of their 

 home flower. In the ultraviolet 

 spectrum, though, the spiders may 

 actually advertise their presence; 

 extra UV flare apparently lures in 

 certain insects, such as bees, that 

 are attracted to patterned flowers. 



When an unsuspecting mite or 

 pollinating honeybee alights, the 

 spider sinks its fangs into the vic- 

 tim's head or neck, injects a diges- 

 tive fluid that liquefies the internal 

 organs, and sucks the carcass dry. 

 Nothing larger than a micron 

 across can fit in its mouth — hence 

 the need to liquefy. The drained 

 hull is soon tossed or blown away, 

 leaving a clean floral plate. 



Photographer and seasoned 

 arachnologist Simon D. Pollard 

 sighted this crab spider (Thotnisus 

 sp.) in Bukit Timah, a nature re- 

 serve in Singapore. Eyes elevated 

 on pointy projections characterize 

 the genus Thotnisus, and at one 

 point Pollard could see only two 

 little eyes — two of the spider's 

 eight — peeping over a petal at him. 



Crab spiders may be hard to spot 

 (they see you more often than you 

 see them), but they're not rare. 

 More than 2,000 species exist 

 worldwide. Remember that the 

 next time you stop for a sniff. 



— Erin Espelie 



Fish Story 



Most anyone who's ever put on a mask and flippers knows 

 the thrill of tropical reef snorkeling. You've slathered on 

 the SPF 45, rubbed spit and seawater into your mask to 

 clear the view, waded into the warm, clear waters off the beach, and 

 kicked across the lagoon to the reef. The underwater world is mes- 

 merizing, and you watch in fascination as stylish little Moorish idols 

 skitter among the sea fans, and long, impossibly thin, almost trans- 

 parent needlefish hang motionless above a growth of staghorn coral. 



Then you sense a murky form, almost invisible in the distance, 

 much larger than anything in your immediate vicinity. Brain flash: 

 how safe are these waters, anyway? If it's a shark, do you stop to avoid 

 the splashing that is said to attract them, or do you make a quick 

 U-turn and head for shore? Whew! It's just a sea turtle — but, oh, 

 what a turtle! Four feet long from stem to stern, and big enough to 

 ride. You swim with the creature while it drifts along, allowing you 

 within touching range, and for a moment, until it tires of the lazy 

 pace a human swimmer can manage, you feel as if you've met a visi- 

 tor from another planet. Such a close encounter can be life-changing. 



Imagine, then, the frisson of coming nose to nose with a thirty- 

 five-foot version of the leviathan that appears on our cover this 

 month, the whale shark. Steven G. Wilson ("The Biggest Fish," page 

 42) doesn't need to imagine; he swims with them for a living. "I felt a 

 jolt to my lower back," he writes, "and suddenly found myself being 

 propelled through the water. All I could see was a whirl of spots. It 

 took me a moment to comprehend that another, much larger whale 

 shark had struck me with its dorsal fin and was pushing me forward." 



Wilson's experience was startling, to be sure, but he was never in 

 real danger: whale sharks are filter feeders, and nothing much bigger 

 than krill and other puny prey are at risk of becoming food. The en- 

 counter, in any event, was a bit unusual; he was deliberately stirring 

 up trouble by trying to dart another whale shark with an electronic 

 tag. Most of the time, the animals are as docile as dairy cattle, and a 

 lively ecotourism industry is building up around swimming with the 

 creatures. On a number of reefs throughout the world — in the Yu- 

 catan of Mexico, off the coast of western Australia, in the waters off 

 the town of Donsol, in the Philippines, and elsewhere — you too can 

 swim with whale sharks, if you dare! 



• • • 



Some well-deserved recognition came to our superlative colum- 

 nists recently. Neil deGrasse Tyson, our regular "Universe" 

 columnist, will receive the prestigious American Institute of Physics 

 Science Writing Award this May, for best article by a scientist, for his 

 column "In the Beginning" (September 2003). 



Joe Rao, our long-time "Sky" columnist ("The Sky in April," 

 page 74) and the weeknight TV weatherman on News 12 Westch- 

 ester, has been nominated for a New York Emmy for On-Camera 

 Talent in the weathercasting category. 



Congratulations to both! — Peter Brown 



8 



NATURAL HISTORY April 2006 



