No ripe berries for Halloween. Alas. I saw spotted cucumber beetle on it yesterday and squished it. Also squished a tree cricket. A couple of unripe berries were slightly nibbled and discarded (probably cricket). I tried a green one and it tastes like baby peas. Not bad. Hopefully ripe berries are better.
This Marbled Orb Weaver spider descended on me from our dogwood tree. I didn’t get a chance to carve a pumpkin this year so this’ll have to do. #spider#orbweavers#marbledorbweaver#arachtober
Frilled Orbweaver (Kaira alba) - #Arachtober 30
I kept hoping to see what kind of web this species makes. Till I learned they doesn't use a web to hunt. This spider uses pheromones to attract moths and she grabs them when they come close. #spider#arachnid#macrophotography
For the last #FossilFriday of #arachtober, meet a Phalangiotarbid arachnid. Phalangiotarbids are members of an extinct arachnid order - a fossil in siderite of one is shown left, and a CT scan and 3D reconstruction of that shown right. This fossil is around ~315 million years old. Members of this order aren't found in rocks younger than ~280 million years old - so the group went extinct at some point after this.
My favorite, Southern Bolas Spiders (Mastophora cornigera). Camouflaged like bird droppings. Orbweavers, but instead of a traditional web, she dangles a strand of with an extra sticky blob on the end and emits pheromones to attract moths. #Arachtober#spider#macrophotography
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For #FossilFriday and #Arachtober meet a lovely fossil scorpion. This is Waeringoscorpio. It is 395 million years old (scale bar 5mm), and those weird structures sticking out of the side have been interpreted to be external gills.
Help! My school garden is thriving. BUT it is absolutely infested with black widows. In the raised beds, in every irrigation hose and drain, in doorways and on walls. Everywhere. It took me five minutes to capture the three deadly ladies in the reply (don’t look if you fear spiders 😬). They’re also inside the library and all over campus. I’ve closed the garden to my classes and am awaiting the school district’s pest control, but … are there any natural remedies I can try in the meantime? I’d love to avoid the pesticide solution. #gardening#teaching#growyourown#Allotment#insects#spiders#bugs#arachtober#today
For #FossilFriday and #Arachtober here are some ~100 million year old spiders from South Korea. These animals were probably preserved when rivers washed their remains into large lakes/basins associated with the plate tectonic movements of the time.
This tiny toddler of a Grayish Jumping Spider (Phidippus princeps) looks like a child be scolded. I don't know what I did to it, but I sure am sorry. Perhaps its ashamed of my lack of diffusion as well... Seen in Manassas National Battlefield Park
For #Arachtober - this stunning 'ground' sac #spider (cf. Gnaphosidae Genus indet sp. indet) found on the trunk of a toddy palm, at #powai, #mumbai (13th. AUG 2023 17:21 hrs.)
The Mumbai region is home to several #species many of which still remain undiscovered, and are likely new to #science.
Does this count? I believe this is a Buffalo Treehopper (Stictolobus sp.) which landed on a tarantulas back. It was traversing the spiders knee when I captured this image.
Today is #DeinopidDay. A celebration of Deinopidae, Net-casting spiders. A fascinating family. I saw this one, my first, in Florida when @apsciencebydan and I went looking for spiders. #Arachtober#spider#macrophotography
I was worried the pollinators wouldn’t find these flowers after two new species were completely ignored (achocha and pink soba). But they found it. 😊 Maybe I will have spider berries for Halloween?