#DailySpiderPic: found a couple of _Myrmarachne_ ant-mimic jumping spiders on the garden wall today! With their shape and coloration combined with fast staccato motion, if you're not looking closely it's easy to confuse them with their model, _Camponotus_ carpenter ants (pictured: a worker feeding on a bit of apple I gave them, also today).
#bugstodon #antstodon #arachnids #spiders #JumpingSpiders #insects #ants #mimicry #myrmecomorphy #Araneae #Salticidae #Hymenoptera #Formicidae #ArthroBeauty
There's a tan jumping spider (_Platycryptus undatus_) that apparently lives on the garden wall. I caught a plant bug for her. She didn't take it out of my fingers but I put it on the edge of a brick. She circled warily until she was behind it, then began tapping her trembling pedipalps in unison (you could practically see the gears turning in her head and equations flying by). Then she leaped on it and dragged it into the shade between two bricks. I hope she survives and sticks around. It is nice having a jumping spider to visit.
(There are plenty of zebra jumpers already, but I can't tell them apart)
#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #spiders #JumpingSpiders #Araneae #Salticidae
Forgive the subpar photos but I just saw an ant-mimic jumping spider (_Synageles_) investigating a crevice in a wrought-iron fence post. Antennae twitched within. The hole was already occupied by a carpenter ant (_Camponotus_ cf. _novaeboracensis_?) who did not buy the spider's disguise one bit. The last pic is the Synageles looking at me like "Did you just see that?!" It was too funny.
#DailySpiderPic #bugstodon #spiders #AntMimic #JumpingSpiders #mimicry #myrmecomorphy #ants #Araneae #Salticidae #Hymenoptera #Formicidae
#DailySpiderPic: Just the other day I said to @futurebird that I really wanted to find another male _Philodromus marxi_ and today IT HAPPENED. It was ballooning from the arm of a Muskoka chair by the lake, in the same park where I'd found one years ago.
While most running crab spiders here are grey or brown, made to camouflage against tree bark or in the undergrowth, _P. marxi_ males have shiny iridescent abdomens. I think they are stunningly beautiful.
#bugstodon #spiders #RunningCrabSpiders #Araneae #Philodromidae #ArthroBeauty
#DailySpiderPic: I was thrilled to discover that there is a feather-legged or hackled orbweaver (family Uloboridae) in the lavender plant again this year—surely a child of last year's.
These spiders are unusual in a few ways: they have lost their venom entirely, and they make orb webs with cribellate silk that is fuzzy instead of sticky. (There are many spiders that make orb webs, and many that make cribellate silk, but only this family does both.) They are not rare, but I still think they are interesting.
#DailySpiderPic: was curious who occupied this luxurious home so I lifted up the leaf and this male yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) popped out!
#bugstodon #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae #ArthroBeauty
#FlyFriday × #DailySpiderPic: a male non-biting midge (family Chironomidae) falls prey to a minuscule juvenile jumping spider. Male midges' plumose (literally, feather-like) antennae are used for sensing females.
#bugstodon #insects #flies #FridayFlyday #FlydayFriday #spiders #JumpingSpiders #Araneae #Salticidae #Diptera #Chironomidae
Found three spiders in a hands-breadth under the lip of a brick wall: a good-sized _Parasteatoda tepidariorum_ house spider; a zebra jumping spider (_Salticus scenicus_); and its prey, a small cobweb spider of some kind such as _Theridion_ based on the markings (see last pic).
#DailySpiderPic #spiders #CobwebSpiders #JumpingSpiders #Araneae #Theridiidae #Salticidae #ArthroBeauty
A ball of baby orbweavers. In my very own yard!!! #blessed
#DailySpiderPic #spiders #orbweavers #Araneae #Araneidae #ArthroBeauty
A pretty meh day but still managed to see several spiders:
- a mesh-web weaver couple
- a crab spider, something in Coriarachnini
- _Attulus fasciger_ with that teeny tiny posterior median eye clearly visible
- a cobweb spider, maybe _Enoplognatha_?
#DailySpiderPic #spiders #JumpingSpiders #CrabSpiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #Thomisidae #Salticidae #Theridiidae
neville park