Reader “Michael Michaels” sent some pictures from the Pacific northwest:
I’ve attached three pictures, one of the view from the beach at a local park called Witty’s Lagoon, on the West coast of Vancouver Island, looking looking onto the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards the Olympic Mountains of Washington State. The remaining two are local wildlife.
The dragonfly was having trouble of some sort, flying very erratically and crashing into everything, including my foot. I just had enough time to take its picture when it took off and crashed into my leg, the fence, a bench, some grass and then I lost it to sight. I considered catching it and mounting it, as it was so beautiful and probably not long for the world, but I just couldn’t.
The next is from the same place but a closeup of what I first thought was a mandarin orange—but eventually realized it’s a Opisthobranch, or more commonly known as nudibranchs, a sea slug. I found this one trapped in a small warm tide pool. I put it in the ocean but it didn’t swim away. I hope I didn’t shock it with the change in temperature. It’s not a great picture but this is the first and only sea slug I’ve ever come across.
Jacques Hausser from Switzerland documents The Life of a Spider:
Here’s a series of four photos about Pisaura mirabilis and its nursery.
Some time ago (Oct. the 15th) Mark Stuvesant presented us a nice photograph of Pisaurina mira, a Nursery web spider (Pisauridae). Here is its European counterpart, Pisaura mirabilis, and how the female cares for her progeny.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any picture of the mating, with the male offering a fat and juicy fly to the female (a larger gift usually ensures a longer and more effective sperm transfer: see here). But here is a female carrying her eggs in a silky egg sack held in her jaws and palps. She is looking for a good place to establish her nursery.
Building the nursery, a fuzzy web tent incorporating several leaves (bushy asters in this case). The creamy egg sack is visible to the left above and behind the spider.
Just after the hatching: you can see the open egg sack (open by the mother herself) and the brown mass of the spiderlings, some of them starting to explore the nursery. The mother stays around to protect her young for some time.
That is a gorgeous dragonfly.
Very nice sequence of the Nursery Spider. I’ve noticed that posture the mother spider is in (the last picture), with the two front legs on each side together appearing to almost be one leg each, in a few other types of spiders. If I remember correctly the Golden Silk Orb Weaver does this too, for example. Anyone ever heard anything about what that may be for?
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Such a beautiful dragonfly. I admit to being a ‘dragonfly tragic’. I could not have captured it for a specimen either.
Thank you for the wonderful image.
“Sea slugs” can indeed be very pretty. I’ve got a number of photos of such on the laptop from various oceans which I’ll plumb into the pipeline whe I’m back on the laptop.
Michael, wonderfully diverse set of shots there! I love the cloud bank hugging the Olympics.
Jacques, fascinating spider sequence! The spiderlings look surprisingly large to me; wonder if they pass through an instar or two before leaving the nest sack?
Those mountains are my home! So glad to see snow on them.
Vancouver Island is one of my favorite places to visit. Great tide pools and forests, then you can live in luxury in Victoria for some engaging city-life. From Seattle, you can take a speedy Clipper to Victoria and stay a couple nights for less than $200/person. It only takes 3 hours, so it’s very convenient and loads of fun.
Nice spider pics and commentary…at least the male can get away with giving a gift of another insect instead of himself in this species.
Awesome pictures. I did not know that nursery spider males can give females nuptial gifts! Besides ‘earning’ a mating right, I suppose the female is less inclined toward cannibalism b/c here mouth is full at the time.
The dragonfly is the blue-eyed darner (Aeshna multicolor). Amazing colors. But the colors fade in the collection, so it may be best to just keep them as a memory.
Thank you all for the kind comments and information. I’m glad I didn’t capture and kill the dragonfly, even more so knowing it would have lost it’s amazing colour. I’m always amazed that people can tell which they are, it seems to me each one I see appears unique, some new colour or combination of colours.
I found a picture of what i believe is a similar sea slug at:
http://www.8arm.com/~8arm/photo_albums.html?album_id=754&group_id=#
It’s not as spectacular as many others when swimming, but I’m still happy to have found one. It’s not my call but I for one would very much like to see pictures of swimming sea slugs.
Witty’s Lagoon is one of my favorite parks in the area. I like it for the view, the bird, animal and sea life, it’s geology and of course, the ocean.
It’s protected inside the lagoon so it attracts an amazing number of birds.
I once had a small otter or mink almost walk over my feet in the dusk light as I stood quietly waiting for a long exposure picture. I also like the cloud formations rolling over the ocean, which can often be seen all the way to the Olympic mountains.
My d*g also loves Witty’s Lagoon. He is partial to the mud, of which he is a connoisseur and serious about getting it into every possible orifice, so I have to bring a blanket for the back seat, two gallons of water and a towel to dry him. The mud is extremely fine silt and clay and stinks to high heaven so cleaning him before going home is only a prelude to a serious wash at home.
He’s rolled in much worse things, (terrible unspoken things) and he enjoys it so much I can’t begrudge him his fun.