Palehua-Palikea – June 30, 2013

Today I was invited on a hike which is known to be the home of many endemic and endangered species. But the two endemic species we’d be looking for today are happy face spiders and Hawaiian Land snails.

I live right down the hill from Palehua road. I’ve been there twice, both times without permission. But this time, I would be joining Nate as he would be helping us find some rare bugs. In addition, we would have enough time to search the preserve for what we needed to look for.

Joining the crew today were some all-stars and experienced hikers alike. They were Caveman, Thomas, J, Kikaida, Chenay, Janice, Thessa, The Not So Great Hiker, DJ, Aaron, and Lynne.

We met at the top of Makakilo at 7am, and carpooled over to Palehua. There, Nate led a blistering pace to the enclosed reserve. According to Nate, this reserve was built because of one rare snail. Nate told me that it took him 3 years to find this rare snail, but it is not on the endangered list, go figure. Its name is pupu kuahiwi or the sanguine litter snail (Laminella sanguinea). You can see its red shell. Thessa also calls it the poop snail because the snail covers himself in dirt, so it looks like shit. But when cleaned off, it has a beautiful red shell with a nice design. J found the first one and Thessa found the second one. Nate cleaned them off and photographed them, so did the rest of us.

After looking for snails, we started to search for happy face spiders, whose scientific name is theridion grallator. I’ve never seen happy face spiders in person before, it was exciting. As far as we know, happy face spiders are endemic to Hawaii and cannot be found anywhere else in the world.  In fact, it only lives on 4 islands, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and the Big Island. They usually make their home under certain leaves. Looking for these things is not easy. I had a hard time looking for them. Luckily Chenay is an expert and pointed it out to us. We spent hours looking for snails and happy face spiders. What a wonderful experience!

I’ve been hiking for a short time and realize that it’s not fair that we get to see all of this and others don’t. For that I’m thankful.