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New spider name salutes Native American ties

Contest inspired by UC Davis professor's rare discovery draws 200-plus entries

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED SEP 29, 2020

This is a female Cryptocteniza kawtak.
(Photo courtesy Jason Bond, UC Davis)

A once-in-a-lifetime discovery now has a name: Cryptocteniza kawtak .

That blend of Latin and Mutsun was the winning entry in a naming contest

for a new species of trapdoor spider, discovered by UC Davis professor Jason Bond.

Bond found the unusual spider, described as “a living fossil” for its throwback ancestry,

on a sandy beach at Moss Landing State Park near Monterey.

During the pandemic, he held an online naming contest and received more than 200 suggestions

from around the globe.

“There were a lot of names proposed,” Bond told Bug Squad blogger Kathy Keatley Garvey.

“They fell into a few general categories:

1) named after me – people apparently like my last name and the association with the James Bond

character but naming a spider after one’s self would not be good form;

2) Native Americans, particularly California indigenous groups;

3) location (Moss Landing) and/or physical description; and

The name comes from the Mutsun word for “seashore.”

The Mutsun tribe lived near Mission San Juan Bautista, not far from Moss Landing.

“I have also named other California spiders in the past for Native American groups and

feel strongly that such new species names are an elegant connection to California, to the

land and its native people,” Bond said.

The name was submitted by entomologist and UC Davis alumna Kirsten Pearsons,

who just received her doctorate at Penn State.

In her submission, she wrote: “Kawtak means ‘on the seashore' in the Mutsun language.

Before the Spanish arrived, the Moss Landing area was home to the Mutsun people. Today,
tribal members and linguists are working to revitalize the Mutsun language, so this could

be a small way to recognize this effort and to recognize their ties to the Monterey Bay.

"Also, it just sounds nice following the genus name!”

Bond first discovered the new spider (a female) in 1997, but it took until 2019 for him to
find a male and verify a separate species.

With a team of UC Davis colleagues, Bond wrote a scientific journal article on the spider find,

its evolution and discovery, crediting Pearsons with the name.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2Ggm7RE .

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Garden Checklist for week of Oct. 13

Our break in the heat has arrived. Time to get planting!

* October is the best month to plant perennials in our area. Add a little well-aged compost and bone meal to the planting hole, but hold off on other fertilizers until spring. Keep the transplants well-watered (but not wet) for the first month as they become settled.

* Now is the time to plant seeds for many flowers directly into the garden, including cornflower, nasturtium, nigella, poppy, portulaca, sweet pea and stock.

* Plant seeds for radishes, bok choy, mustard, spinach and peas. Plant garlic and onions.

* Set out cool-weather bedding plants, including calendula, pansy, snapdragon, primrose and viola.

* Reseed and feed the lawn. Work on bare spots.

* Dig up corms and tubers of gladioli, dahlias and tuberous begonias after the foliage dies. Clean and store in a cool, dry place.

* Treat azaleas, gardenias and camellias with chelated iron if leaves are yellowing between the veins.

* Clean up the summer vegetable garden and compost disease-free foliage.

* Harvest pumpkins and winter squash.

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