Tony Eales from Brisbane sent us some lovely photos of arthopods, including some great examples of mimicry and camouflage (“crypsis”). Tony’s captions are indented.
Some mimicry and a few other random arthropods.
Three shots of a wraparound spider, Dolophones sp. These are small, only about 8mm across and fairly common, but rarely seen for obvious reasons. I find them mostly in the late afternoon as they start to build their web for the night. When building the web they just look like any other small orb-weaving spider, but when they see you approaching they scurry up a silk-line to the nearest twig and virtually disappear. As you can see in the third picture, when not all folded up in camouflage pose they display quite a bit of colour.
The ones I normally see have flattened dome-shaped abdomen but I knew there were ones out there with these weird turrets on their backs and had been wanting to photograph one for ages. Evolution is weird.
Next is a Hangingfly Harpobittacus sp. Hangingflies are in a separate order of insects Mercoptera along with Scorpionflies. We don’t have a lot of species diversity in this family in Australia but do have a lot of diversity at higher levels, with two families being endemic. Hangingflies are famous for their elaborate mating rituals in which the male captures prey to present to the females. I hope to observe this one day.
This female Clear-wing Persimmon Borer moth (Ichneumenoptera chrysophanes) is so far the find of the season for me. I have never seen such a striking wasp-mimicking moth.
The model is probably something like this Ichneumenon wasp Xanthopimpla sp.
And lastly just a little cutie. A very tiny Sandalodes sp. jumping spider with a tiny katydid nymph as prey. [JAC: Doesn’t it look excited?}
Delightful!
If anyone wants to have an amusing time with words, “Ichneumenon” will give a treat…. I can’t recall exactly what I found last time, but I’ll look again now.
“Ichneumenon” has such an interesting aura to it, every time I see it – and that’s often on RWP.
Here we are :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumon_(medieval_zoology)
The jumping spider truly looks like it belongs in a Pixar film.
There is a cute animated “Lucas the Spider” created to help those with aversions to spiders.
https: //youtu.be/VrS6akzR3sk
First rate! Always a pleasure to see your stuff. I too see a lot of hangingflies hangin’ around, but have yet to see their use of nuptial gifts.
Ah well we’ll both just have to keep looking. Thanks for the compliment.
NO hangingflies in Oregon, but there are several species in California. They make fine ‘pets’ in terraria. Just give them some branches to hang from, introduce some house flies and watch them snick the flies in mid-air with their switchblade-like hind tarsal claws.
[Fun fact, due to the specialized claws, they can’t walk. So flit and brachiate. Or just brachiate in the case of Apterobittacus apterus, from the San Francisco Bay area.]
Great macro shots, the last one in particular showing the size of the spider and its prey.
That last photo is a winner!
Lovely photos!
It always amazes me (even though I know how) that something so small can be so structured.
I know right? I am further amazed at how efficiently they are packed in eggs. I have photos of assassin bugs still beside the eggs they hatched from and they look far to large to have come out of such a little box.
Gulp! Those are great shots!
Thanks for the nice pictures.
Way cool! All of these photos are great, thanks.