I have one more batch to go, as Mark Sturtevant kindly sent in a batch of arthropod photos. Mark’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. And send in your photos, please!
These are pictures from two summers ago. The first pictures wrap up a trip that I had begun earlier, where I visited Illinois to witness the rare dual emergence of 13- and 17-year periodical cicadas. What remains from that batch are dragonflies.
The first of these are female and male Midland Clubtails, Gomphurus fraternus:
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Next is a terrible picture that totally made my day! This is the Swamp Darner, Epiaeschna heros, and I’ve been chasing this species for years as it is one of the largest dragonflies in the US, but it ranges just south of where I live. The link provides a picture that gives a better idea about their size:
It took off immediately after, but I was very glad to even get this. I had recently learned that this is the only living species in its genus, and the rest are known only from fossils.
The last dragonfly is a Twelve-spotted Skimmer, Libellula pulchella. This is an exceedingly common species so I usually don’t bother with them, but the air was very calm so I was able to get a quick manual focus stack with a long lens:
Next, we return back to my normal hunting grounds in Michigan. On one outing to an area park I had found this strongly melanistic lady beetle. Color variations are not unusual in this group, but I’ve never seen one like this. I think it is a Fifteen-spotted Lady Beetle (Anatis labiculata), based on various hints about its morphology. They are also spotted beetles, but I could not find one of those pose alongside it so I used the very familiar Asian Lady Beetle instead (Harmonia axyridis):
Spiders are always welcome, right? A species that is common near water is the Long-jawed Orbweaver (Tetragnatha sp.). These are exceptionally delicate and shy spiders, and their elongated chelicerae and fangs are not there to be alarming. Rather, they are specialized tools for picking mosquitos out of their web, and for clasping one another during mating. The link shows a video of the latter activity.
This is a portrait of a male, and he would flee at the slightest disturbance during the focus stacking session at the dining room table. It took hours to get this picture, and it was exhausting! :
This scene from a little shop of horrors is from inside the lair of a Candy-striped spider (Enoplognatha ovata). The common name refers to a color variation with red stripes, as shown at the link, but others are a more plain variety like this one. Candy-striped spiders build sparse webs under leaves and under flowers, and to me the webs seem next to worthless for entangling prey, so perhaps their role is to provide a system of trip lines that merely delay arthropods while they are passing through while also alerting the spider so that it can run out and attack. The species has some notoriety because of its habit of leaving its base at night to patrol the surrounding area searching for daytime-active insects that have bedded themselves down on plants to sleep. Once discovered, this prey does not wake up again. The picture is a quick manual focus stack of a typical encounter from my yard, followed by a cropped version:
Finally, how do crab spiders do it? I’ve never seen one move fast, and yet they commonly take down very alert prey that one would think would know better. Here for example is a Ground Crab Spider (Xysticus sp.) making a meal out of a jumping spider (Phidippus clarus). Note the fang puncture marks. I routinely find crab spiders with very alert and fast kinds of prey like this, including flies, bees, and wasps, and yet crab spiders seem lethargic in their movements. So how do they do it?
I recently posted that picture online and expressed my bafflement about this mystery. A friend did some investigating and found this video with a different species of crab spider. All I can say is mystery solved, and 😳!
Superb photos and I like the adventuring for it – sighting a rare species is thrilling!
I think theres only one way to go from detailed photos like these – more detail, more resolution – gorgeous!
Amazing Odonates and other living things. The face on that Ground Crab Spider would be terrifying—if you were very small. Those ocelli. The better to see you with, my dear. Thank you!
Thanks for the post showing arthropods which I am not familiar with. The closeups are amazing. The Long-jawed Orbweaver is scary looking. I can’t believe he is shy and gave you a tough time photographing. Pretty threatening looking to me. The effort photographing him paid off. He’s incredible in eyes and pincers.
Thanks.
They are as delicate and harmless as a floating dandelion seed. But they concentrate near water. I remember as a kid being rather terrified (but also excited) about them when they would drop into a canoe when floating down a river and bumping into reeds along the shore.
Enjoyed that, especially the shy Long-jawed Orbweaver (Tetragnatha sp.) story, thanks for posting 📫 ☺️
Your photos always blow me away, and this time is no exception!
These are incredible as always. Congratulations on your Swamp Darner! And thanks for revealing the secrets of crab spider predation.
Gorgeous photos, as always, Mark. Thanks for sharing these!
I saw no “terrible picture” among these! Regarding crab spiders (thanks for the video!), one reason they are such successful stealth hunters is that hoverflies and bees, their main prey, have a sense of vision that’s somehow very different from ours (not sure whether the difference is from the eyes or the brain processing) and deficient in some areas of visual perception. I have seen so many bees/hoverflies land and crawl around on flowers with a crab spider clearly visible. Also, bees notice other bees (at least of different species) or big beetles on the same flower only when they bump into them. Strangely, the same bees have no problem sensing a potential sexual partner even from a distance.