June 4th, 2007
beautiful spiders
I guess the best way to describe this weekend was that it was a blockbuster as far as spider and insect activity is concerned. All of a sudden, there is motion everywhere in the fields and woods here at the farm. Yesterday, I photographed several species of spiders — a couple of them new to me. All in all, it was pretty exciting and I’ve had a difficult time choosing just a few photos to highlight here. Which ones? New spiders? beautiful spiders? Spiders doing fascinating things? Hmmm. I decided to go with a little of each for today’s post, but I think you’ll probably find at least one more spider post appearing in the next few days.
The first spider is new to me here at the farm. I’m quite certain it is Hypsosinga pygmaea. The coloration and striped markings reminded me a little of a potato beetle. I noticed the spider ascending a blade of grass along the trail in the woods, so I stopped to observe and take a few photos.
There was another nice surpise in store a moment later when she moved inside of this wonderful structure formed with silk and a curled blade of grass. You can see her inside — that dark area to the left of the refuge. The silk seems to have been formed in two layers spun on opposing diagonals. I’m thinking that this would create a good deal of tension that would result in structural stability.
The next spider (above), while not new to me, is of interest as it’s one of the flower crab spiders that I enjoy observing here in our garden. It’s a Northern Crab Spider (Misumenops asperatus) in its bright yellow phase. Like the Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) which I’ve occasionally written and posted photos of, it can change its coloration from white to yellow and even a greenish shade in order to conceal itself from its intended prey.
The next spider, a female Zebra Jumping Spider (Salticus scenicus), is beautifully patterned when seen up close. She’s also one of the spiders being tracked on Spider WebWatch, so I was pleased to find her among the Hydrangea leaves, carrying what appears to be a tiny and rather unfortunate ichneumon wasp. I’ve posted the sighting and it now appears on the Salticus scenicus Observations page on Spider WebWatch. If you’re seeing this or any of the other 9 species being tracked, be sure to submit a report.
Next up — I revisted “the chair” to see what was happening with the Eris militaris jumping spiders that I wrote about last week. I was in for a couple of surprises this time. First, I found a male Eris guarding the refuge with the female spider once again seen upside down by what I can only conclude are egg cases — the granular-coated little cases which I described last week. When I approached with my camera, the male spider moved about to glare out each of the two small openings into the refuge. His message was quite clear — Go away!
I complied, but not before photographing the second surprise on the chair — another new-to-me spider — this time, another species of jumping spider, a male Tutelina similis (see below). He was just tiny, but so elegantly marked, with dark lines down each leg, and deep purple pedipalps held up boldly as he scampered from one part of the chair to the next, occasionally crouching down into the patches of lichen where his coloration made him next to invisible.
Well, that’s not the end of yesterday’s spider observations, but I’m guessing that it I might be boring the non-arachnophiles among us, so I’ll quit for now and post some more another day. However, for those of you who have not had quite enough of invertebrates, get yourself over to Mike Bergin’s 10,000 Birds blog for the 21st edition of CIRCUS OF THE SPINELESS!!
Tags: Hypsosinga pygmaea, Misumenops asperatus, Salticus scenicus, Eris militaris, Tutelina similis