Archive for the ‘Spiders’ Category

14 Nov

Eggs and a Predator

Posted by naturesnippets in Insects, Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , , .

While searching the wild cherry tree for a hibernating caterpillar, I found an egg mass.

Eastern tent caterpillars will hatch from these in the spring … unless the spider I saw when I found them, decides to return. The white area shows where the spider had gotten through the dried foam to the eggs. The egg mass measured 1/2 inch long.

The uncooperative spider didn’t like my being there. Its silhouetted on the right side of the branch, with its abdomen down. The little bump is its cephalothorax (fused head and thorax). Legs go on up together from the body. I don’t know how many of its 8 legs do that.

I’ve seen tent caterpillar egg masses eaten or partially eaten before. I never suspected a spider … not that I’d given it much thought.

16 Sep

Thistles … Have Visitors?

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

What was this crab spider thinking? How did it even get on the tip of this thistle bud?

How can prey get to it?

Thistles have bloomed for a while out in the middle of my weed patch because there’s more sun light there. I’ve been watching the shorter ones growing on the south side of the weed patch. They are getting more sunlight now that the sun’s moving farther south.

The pattern on the buds looks like it’s been stitched, and I’ve photographed it often.

Only tiny insects could crawl around on these plants.

The words hostile environment come to mind.

I checked the spider in the evening, and it was gone. I assumed it lowered itself on a strand of silk … wonder if it lowered itself onto the bud in the first place?

These pictures are from the next evening.

This one was on a different bud. It didn’t like the attention, and

it did a quick side-step, angling downward. It also angled its body outward.  I assumed this posture was meant to threaten me by making itself look bigger.

Then it resumed its patient-waiting position.

I didn’t see the tiny jumping spider at the base of this bud until I saw the picture on the computer. Obviously, thistles have more activity around buds than I expected, and will have even more when they bloom.

————-

Then I found more interesting things around the thistles this evening. (the next night).

This spider’s pale coloring and faint markings makes me think it recently molted.

Three of the thistles changed dramatically in the last 24 hours. If you look close, about a third of the way up, you’ll see a tiny darkish winged insect.

The prey here looked like maybe a beetle. It was a 16th of an inch at the very most.

14 Sep

An Odd Behavior

Posted by naturesnippets in Insects, Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , , .

They don’t call skippers “skippers” for nothing; they can “skip” away so fast I don’t see them go.

So, when I went in close to take a picture and the skipper stayed there, I knew something was going on.

My suspicions were correct; it was prey to a crab spider. Crab spiders can change color to match the color of the flower they’re on. They ambush their prey, inject it with venom to immobilize it. They then feed until the victim is sucked dry.

The victim was a male fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus). Their wingspan measures 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches.

 When I went out after supper, the skipper lay on the ground. I twisted the stem of the salvia to see the spider. Females are much bigger than the males.

5 Sep

Cute … for a Spider

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

I chuckled when I saw this crab spider “staring” back at me. There’s the “hat” design, its face and even suspenders. The hat and face are on its abdomen and the suspenders on the thorax.

How cute!

It was patiently waiting for insects to visit the thistle flowers for a nectar meal.

I’m sure prey wouldn’t see any humor in the situation.

2 Sep

Garden Spider

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , , .

The evening sun backlit this garden spider’s web.

This is the first summer in several years that a garden spider hasn’t built a web just outside my picture window. A predator might have gotten in the egg case during the winter.

I call them “garden spiders.” Technically, they go by the name black-and-yellow argiope. This one is a female. They have a body up to 1 1/8-inch long. The male’s body only reaches 3/8-inch.

Look at the size of her abdomen.

Her appearance changed two days later …

                                                                                                                                  

Compare the proportions of her abdomen before and after laying her eggs.

Next was finding her egg case.  The ones in the past with webs near picture window had their egg case fastened to the end of the web and against the house.

It’s a jungle in my sedum patch, and so far I haven’t been able to find the egg case. I don’t want to disturb her. She’s in the near the upper middle part of the picture where the brown leaf is.

This picture was taken last year.  She laid her eggs during the night, so I didn’t get to see how she made that “vessel.”

Wikipedia says the female lays her eggs on a sheet of silky material. She lays down another sheet of silk and then a sheet of protective brown silk.  Next she uses her legs to form the silk into a ball with an up-turned neck. The egg sacs can be up to 1 inch in diameter and have up to 1,000 eggs.

29 Jul

Spiders — Who Knew?

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , .

Imagine my surprise — shock — disbelief — when I woke one morning last summer to find this garden spider in its web …  a web that stretched from the headboard of my bed to the window frame! At first I thought it was outside, until I changed my angle. It had built its web while I slept.

These black and yellow garden spiders aren’t small, they’re BIG, especially when they’re right over your head. After taking pictures, I successfully caught it and released it outside. I never did figure out how it got inside in the first place, much less into my bedroom (I keep the door closed to keep the cats out).

Flash showed the spider’s markings

Garden spider in it’s normal habitat

The reason for this spider blog is to pass on some information my youngest son learned the hard way.  He and a friend left to shoot a national archery tournament last July in Ohio. Davis thought he was getting a cold the day they left. His throat and sinuses started hurting. That evening his lower lip felt like the skin had been ripped off. His sore throat got worse, and it felt like something was stuck on top of his windpipe.

While shooting the next day, he had cold chills like he was running a fever. His throat went from just hurting to where felt like the flesh was being ripped off. Then that night it got cold. (They were camping in a pop-up.) His sinuses and throat hurt so bad he couldn’t sleep. Davis (31 years old) has an exceptionally high pain tolerance. He’s disabled with a bad back and takes medications for pain and associated problems.

The third day (Sunday) he wasn’t able to eat, because when he swallowed, it felt like the food went down so far and got stuck. He couldn’t drink and had problems taking his meds. They both shot their archery course early and left in the morning for home. That’s when his throat’s closing got worse and became claustrophobic for him.(Why he didn’t go to the ER then, I’ll never know. Plus, the person with him was a nurse.) He took a day’s worth of a dose pak and several Benadryl.

His throat stayed the same. He got home at 10 p.m. The meds started wearing off and little puss pockets started popping up on his lips, inside his cheeks and on his tongue. His bottom lip swole up so much it cracked and his throat split and he coughed up a little blood.  My husband took his straight to the emergency room.

They did a strep test and looked in his ears. They gave him a steroid shot and said he had strep throat. Later they came back and said it wasn’t strep, that is was an allergic reaction, and gave him a shot with enough steroid ”to last for a whole year.” It was actually a 2-3 month amount. They waited. It didn’t work. They gave him something for pain. Nothing helped, so they gave him another steroid shot with the same amount. Then they sent him home!

His condition hadn’t improved the next morning, and he went to see our family doctor. Before he left, he had a coughing spell where he coughed so hard it busted a puss pocket near his windpipe. He coughed up … I won’t go into those gory details. Then he could breathe normally and food/drink went down normally. The doctor couldn’t give him any more steroids because of the amount he received the night before. Davis was given antibiotics and had an x-ray.

Now for the reason for this story set-up. The doctor told him that the average person swallows 7-8 spiders during their life, and that he sees 5-6 people a year who have swallowed one. This happens when the person’s asleep. Apparently, they go for the moisture in the mouth. It tickles when the spider gets to the back of the throat, and naturally the person swallows. Davis said, “That’s when they get ya.” A lot depends on the size and kind of spider too. It just so happened that Davis was allergic to the one that bit him.

The doctor called the emergency room and “yelled and cussed” the ER because they ARE NOT to release a person that has breathing problems like Davis did.

My intention with this blog isn’t to scare anyone. It’s just to make them aware that this can happen.

30 May

Crab Spider

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , .

I’m proud of this picture!  This is the tiniest crab spider I’ve ever seen! From the lack of color, I suspect it’s recently-hatched. The bud it’s on is a 1/4 inch long.

The crab spider is on butterflyweed, a milkweed. Milkweeds are one of the best butterfly magnets, but that’s for another blog.

Crab spiders can turn the color of the flower they’re on, the better to “hide” themselves when waiting for prey to come close. They don’t weave a web to capture their prey; they use their front legs. They bite their prey to kill it and then suck it dry.  With legs spread, it shows how they got their name. The males grow to 1/8 inch long, and the females from 1/4 to 3/8 inch long.

15 May

Mosaic Spider

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , .

I was looking for a place to take pictures of rocks and started with the picnic table. This quarter-inch spider took offense of my presence and plans. I switched to taking pictures of it. “Metallic spider” immediately came to mind with its stark pattern of green and gold. (The colors were more vivid from overhead.) I took 7 pictures; only this 1 was focused enough to use. The spider reared up 3 times and jumped, attacking the camera lens! From the view on camera display, it either hit the lens or almost did. It obviously had NO fear of me or the camera. It went over the edge of the table on the fourth jump, but caught itself on the lower corner of the wood.

My hat’s off to this fearless little critter!

11 May

Wolf Spider

Posted by naturesnippets in Spiders. Tagged: , , , , , .

I usually don’t see wolf spiders unless I’m committing neatness in the yard. This morning I was moving rocks. The first flat rock I lifted had 100′s of ants and eggs under it. That created pandemonium. The next few rocks also had ants. Then the next rock was flat on the ground. This disturbed a few dried leaves, and this wolf spider ran out and stopped. Usually they don’t pose like this. It must have wanted blog notoriety?

Wolf spiders don’t spin a web, and they roam around at night hunting for food. Most live in burrows in the ground. The female  lays her eggs and wraps them in a large ball web. The ball with this one was roughly 1/2 inch long.  Then she attaches it to her spinnerets and drags it around with her until the eggs hatch about a week later.   Now it gets even more interesting: the spiderlings hatch and climb up her legs and onto her back. She carries dozens of them around on her until they’re old enough to feed themselves. I’ve yet to see one carrying its young.

I searched and searched online to find out how she feeds the young. There are more than 2,000 species of wolf spiders. I found where some don’t feed their young, some feed a liquid and other spiderlings eat their egg yolk. Adults feed on insects, other spiders and similar prey.

Adults are usually patterned with a mixture of black, gray and brown. Like other spiders, they have 8 eyes, 2 body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen), and fang-like mouth parts called chelicerae. These are used to hold prey, inject venom and to eat.

Earlier this spring I removed a large patch of lemon thyme and the stones I had underneath the plants. This uncovered ants, snails, leeches, caterpillars, roly polys and lots of spiders. The picture below is one of the wolf spiders I uncovered.

I know better than to have expectations when it comes to finding specific things in nature, like a female wolf spider carrying her young. Someday it might happen.

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