Anyway, the next time you see a bird turd on a leaf, you may stop and examine it closer, because it may just be this little guy:
What is that, you ask? Well, this is the same question my Uncle asked me. He did his best to describe it over the phone, but it didn't quite come across that well. By the time he was done I thought I was going to find some kind of huge headed mutant frog with bulging eyes and a tiny body(the way it was sitting on the leaf when he saw it, it's legs were tucked up inside, you couldn't tell it was a spider). He at first thought it was a bird turd, but then noticed this turd had eyes and was looking at him.
Anyway, I thought it was cool, and said I wanted to take it to take some photos and see if I could find out what it was. Well I got on the World Wide Web and come to find out this was a fine specimen of the "bird dropping spider". No joke. It disguises itself as a bird dropping so nobody will eat it!
Well, since I'm here at UCR where the entemology department is world renowned, I thought I'd track down the spider specialist and see if he would want it. Well, long story short, he wanted it, so I brought it there and he told me all about "turd mimicry" (this is why I've been throwing around the word "turd" like a 5th grader... I actually don't like this word much at all... I prefer "poop") like this was the scientific term for it, and he said that this spider is quite rare in southern California. So, there you have it, don't be so quick to judge that turd... it just might be some creature playing you for a fool...and yes, there are many other creatures that practice this turd mimicry!
From this angle it looks like a sad/angry, pink-headed jack-o-lantern.
P.S. We humans have somewhat of animal resemblance, for instance some people kinda look like horses, or dogs, and I have a big nose, so I kinda look like a bird... I wonder if there is anyone out there who looks like a turd. You know, when the spiders lined up and got their assignments, one guy got to be brown, the other got to be black with a red hourglass, one guy got to be long legs, and you... you get to be turd.
