Send in your photos, please!
Today we have a potpourri of pictures from various readers. First, Tony Eales sends us photos of a very bizarre spider. It was inspired by a post on this site, and you must look at that post (link below).
All contributors’ captions are indented; click on the photos to enlarge them:
Ever since I saw your piece on assassin spiders I’ve been kind of low key obsessed with finding one to photograph.This weekend I got to do the next best thing. A young friend of mine has been collecting some of these spiders and I got the chance to photograph a penultimate male Austrarchaea judyae.
Here’s a video I posted in my last post, which also has some photos of this extremely bizarre group. They make their living by hunting other spiders, and thus have to avoid being jabbed. The video is by Hannah Wood.
This photo was sent January 10 by Chris Garvey:
Here’s a photo taken yesterday of a swan on a slightly frozen Royal Canal in Dublin. It kept stretching it’s neck out over the thin layer of ice and I’m not sure why. It’s taken with my phone so the quality isn’t great.
A video from Michael Schrank, sent January 23. As he said, turn the sound up to hear the elk calling.
I thought you might enjoy this video we captured last Friday night. We live in Idaho and keep our horses in the foothills around Boise. In the winter we get a lot of elk coming down to steal hay from our horses. The horses are usually not too upset by this surprisingly, so the elk come almost nightly. This was a particularly busy little night. Please turn up the sound to fully enjoy.
Here’s a photo of the elk at the hay feeder. It’s tough to get a good quality shot at the hay because if you get close enough to make an interesting photo with the iPhone, then they begin to run off.
It’s really quite expensive, they eat a lot of hay. But you can spook them off only for a few minutes, they hang in the distance, wait for you to leave and come right back in. It’s just factored into the barn budget.
Cool photos and nice video. That’s a lot of elk! Do they fight over the hay? Seems like far more elk than will get to eat.
Yes, the elk do spar over who gets first bite, but they all do manage to get in and eat. The sounds heard in the background are the elk and that night some coyotes are heard howling from across the road.
Assume these are wild elk. I own a quarter-section in NW ND (near Columbus) – I guess I’m an absentee landlord, but on one trip out there yrs ago the farmer took me to see a friend who was raising elk – mainly for the antlers which wound up going to China as aphrodisiac powder. Any of that going on with your elk?
(Of course MT is between you and ND, but from PA, ID is almost as far as NW ND.)
Great stuff! Perhaps the spider lowers one chelicera so it may be a shield or weapon should the prey be able to counter attack.
That is one wild looking spider. Looks like the swan may be trying to eat something? Both photos give me the shivers…for different reasons. Lastly, that is a large herd of elk…I can see how it would be expensive feeding them, but you have a good attitude about it.
It’s nice that you let the elk eat. Betting not everyone would.
Thx for the shots. Wow. So many beasties in your ‘hood!
D.A.
NYC