Though I’m taking my wildlife folder to India, be aware that I might not be able to post much of it until I return in early April: those posts take both tim and good Internet, and I’m not sure I’ll have much of either in the next few weeks. But, like Maru, I do my best.
Reader Tony Eales from Brisbane sent a selection of beautiful spider pix. Check out the resting position of the Garden Orb Web Spider, and the colors of the jewel spider.
Common Lynx Spider, Oxyopes quadrifasciatus:
Garden Orb Web Spider, Eriophora transmarina:
Golden Orb Weaver, Nephila plumipes:
Male Green Jumping Spider, Mopsus mormon:
Jewel Spider, Austracantha minax:
This genus has only the single species. I’ve inserted a photo of a female from Wikipedia to show its beauty close up:
Northern Golden Orb Weaver, Nephila pilipes:
Silver Orb Spider, Leucauge granulata:
St Andrews Cross Spider, Argiope Keyserlingi:
The lynx spider (1st pic) has curiously spiky legs. Any arachnophiles can tell us why?
(Lovely pix, by the way)
cr
Those are sensory spines. These spiders rely on ambushing prey that gets too close to them, rather than by using webs or by chasing. So the spines are likely used for expanding their sense of touch.
Do Tachinid flies use their spiky hairs for a similar purpose?
They should. The hairs/bristles on arthropods are sensory. Most are for a sense of touch, but other sensory bristles can convey smell. Why tachinids, which are parasitic flies, are extra bristly while parasitic wasps are not is beyond me.
Dr. C, you might consider getting an assistant to keep a copy of those pics and parcel them out while you’re gone. You can add your sciency take on them, as they appear daily.
.. or, seeing as how you’re gonna be very busy there, nomming and all, your learned readers could contribute info. Much like an open post.
These are gorgeous. I love spiders while my offspring are revolted by them.
Arachnophobia is a remarkable thing. I have it, and my reaction is utterly beyond my control. Luckily, it’s connected to a rational brain, which continually tells me to get a grip on myself. I’ve been able to approach the orb webs of Araneus spiders in my barn and place flies on the web with forceps. When the spiders shoot down and grab the flies, I go right through the roof! It’s perfectly awful, but then I just laugh at myself. I find myself to be a hoot sometimes.
I have that reaction to snakes and lizards. Oh, woe is me… I think I got it from my parents, plus when we were very young, my brothers used to chase me with lizards.
I have never had that, although experience has taught me caution in handling big ones.
Just the opposite in our family. I strove, mightily sometimes, not to instill any irrational fears, dislikes, prejudices and the like in my children, by example, as I raised them. It seems to have paid off at least some. Both of them, a boy and a girl, handle critters of all sorts without fear or disgust.
My daughter will say “hey dad look at this!” and show me a spider sitting on her arm or running all over her as she calmly redirects it where she wants. I smile and say “wow sweetie that is cool!” But inside, hopefully, I am experiencing an adrenaline spike and hoping like hell she doesn’t offer to let me hold it.
Assuming it is a harmless species, a small spider (pea sized body) will likely inflict no damage since their fangs will be tiny. I used to make spiders bite me on purpose just to prove that.
Big spiders (say a half inch body) will hurt when they bite. I suppose there are gradiations between them.
The vast majority will not bite when handled unless you pinch them.
I find the thought of letting a spider bite me horrific, so I’m careful when handling them not to squeeze (unless it’s a Redback, where a firm – but not too firm – grip on the abdomen is advisable). So far, never been nipped. But I used to let venomous snakes bite me all the time, so I guess I’m just a functioning arachnophobe really. (My most traumatic invertebrate bites were from large crickets and a Bobbit worm. Those things are way scarier than spiders.)
Big crickets and katydids can be nasty. My worst bite was from a big wolf spider. I was holding it in my open hand and wham!! So I no longer hold big wolf spiders.
We get crickets and cicadas here (in NZ), and bloody noisy the damn things are too. A few weeks ago I thought my computer CPU fan had a duff bearing as there was this howly squeaking noise. Gently touching it with my finger didn’t change the note. But when I switched off the noise (to my relief) continued. I eventually tracked it down to a cricket ‘somewhere’ in the laundry – it’s a remarkably hard noise to pin down to its source.
The cicadas are big, armoured, brutal-looking insects. If they were a car they’d be a Hummer. I’ve been ‘bitten’ by one, twice. I used to let them sit on my finger, till one day I felt a sharp little pain (and the damn thing was hard to shake off). I thought I had imagined it. The second time this happened I looked closer and the damn thing was drilling with its proboscis, like a glaciologist coring a glacier. So now I treat them with distrust.
cr
The Bobbit Worm is truly the stuff of nightmares. I thought it was Indonesian but Wikipedia says is found on southern Australian shores. (But of course! Where else would it be found? Australia is the natural home of all dangerous wildlife. Just add the Bobbit worm to the snakes, cane toads, funnelweb spiders, poisonous improbable monotremes, blue ringed octopus, crocodiles, sharks, stingrays, sea wasps, coral snakes, cassowaries, drop bears, kangaroos, giant centipedes (I’ve never heard of giant centipedes in Oz but c’mon, if they’re big ugly and horrific Oz must have some), baby-eating dingoes and anything else I may have forgotten.
cr
“I’m just a functioning arachnophobe really.”
Ditto. I’ve had worse bites from water bugs, ants, orthopterans, & beetles, but still jump when, say, a rapid grass spider suddenly appears on the arm of my chair. Keeping tarantulas has helped a bit, but the innate reflex is still there.
Meanwhile snakes have never really bothered me. We have a particularly docile rattlesnake (the Massasauga) here, and I’ve leaned in close to photograph them, transferred them away from where my kids liked to play, and when the kids were older, let the rattlers live in the rock-garden and, just last year, in the vegetable garden.
You may be interested in this!
http://entomologytoday.org/2016/03/15/spiders-enjoy-vegetarian-meals-occasionally/
Great pictures! It is always fun to see how species from waaay over there are still similar to species ’round here. For example, your lynx spider and your silver orb spider are clearly related to spiders that I see around.
I thought the same thing seeing the lynx spider. I had to triple check the location. I could walk outside right now, half a world away, and find one so like the one in the pic that I would not be able to discern a difference.
The ones I would see live further west to where I live now. Those were the green lynx spiders.
I’m relatively new to this site. Who/what is this Maru Jerry keeps referring to? Or is it a MacGuffin of some sort?
Also, why is one spider so fat? I’ve sometimes seen them like that and wondered if they were pregnant or if that was a mass of web material.
You are correct — that golden silk orb weaver was almost certainly gravid.
Maru is a famous cat who resides in Japan. Maru’s servant has made him a youtube sensation over the past several years.
And to add to this, Maru (like most cats) cannot resist crawling into a box or open bag. But Maru is a little portly, and so the fit is often amusingly snug.
The irresistible desire to enter something into which one does not quite fit (a box or an argument) is called Maru Syndrome.
To add to what you said, the Maru videos are most charming as there’re no obnoxious music or voices in the background…. the recordings are very quiet and serene and utterly charming.
Great photos, thanks!
Thanks for the arachnid pics. I’ve never seen a jewel spider…quite a lovely spider.
I’ve seen (huge) spiders in Hawaii perch in the St. Andrews cross position. I wonder why they do that?
Thanks for the very nice photos of spiders.
I’m from just out of Brisbane and most of these are familiar to me here. I really like the golden orb weavers, their webs are the best.
Great pics, Tony, thanks! Arthropod pics are especially interesting to study given all the bumps & limbs & hairs & what-all they usually have. I love the way the wolf spider is staring right back at you.