Nature Finds Again

I have the habit of composing my blog posts early morning Monday, fast and quick because i am just sneaking for sometime before i start my normal work. I first look at my latest pictures during that weekend and choose the nature or macro photos from there. I always have bias for either hoyas or butterflies, because they are the ones i have the addiction for. Today i am posting on Sunday night because i did not go home this weekend. The culprit is the very hot surroundings yesterday morning when i am about to go home to the province. The result is that i do not have fresh weekend photos, i did not see nor take any butterfly shots, and the hoyas are both untended and not photographed.

But never mind, i always have lots of photos from recent files. Hmmm i wish to find some shots for Nature Notes. When i am looking for butterflies my attention is always for them, but when only a few of them show up i have attention too for other entities including spiders. However, i seldom know their names.

 a common jumping spider, Salticidae species

A lichen spider guarding its egg sac, it is supposed to be outside with the lichens but probably gallivanting and was trapped inside the bathroom. So it just stayed there with its egg sac. It has been there for two weeks.  Pandercetes sp. (Sparassidae)

A spitting spider (Scytodea sp.) carrying an egg sac . I don't know if they get prey even while guarding their eggs. If only i have time to spare, i will watch them spitting on their prey.

 a colorful Opadometa species

This is a very common resident of my hoya flowers, a crab spider. Very seldom will a hoya umbel  be without it. They are hiding there to ambush bees and butterflies that visit the flowers.

 My first time to see this one, i think unique for a spider

 Nephila sp.

Neoscona theisi

The owner of this web is very small hiding at the back of the central  object, pretending they are big.

I still have lots of spider photos, but i can't seem to see most of them when there's the need. I am posting these to the Arachnophiles Group in FB to know their names. When ready i will put them here. Thanks much!

Nature Notes

Macro Monday 2
Our World Tuesday

Million Babies

One early Sunday morning i was out after coffee, donned with my normal jogging pants, long sleeves and a hat. I am expecting to see a lot of butterflies. I purposely intend to go to my so called "butterfly sanctuary" i term i give to an area under some trees where the undergrowths consist of both hosts and nectaring plants for butterfly. For the many visits i've been going there, it did not fail me. Many butterflies converge there, and also maybe the already very tall trees give the butterflies the environment both not fully exposed to the sun and the enough humidity for them to live nicely. 

However, this time my time was spent differently. I noticed that the area's vegetation are already in the mature stage, maybe not anymore good hosts for the caterpillars. So i took photos of some moths and beetles that i normally ignore when butterflies abound. This morning the primary purpose is not there so i took photos of whatever took my fancy. Even the dried grass fruits ready for wind dispatch are good photo subjects. 

Then i found this! I was a bit scared as they are very plenty, newly hatched baby spiders. Maybe they are hundreds of thousands in one group. I thought they might just have newly emerged. I can't even see the egg sacs they emerged from. 

 undisturbed yet

I watched closely at the somehow not moving spiderlings, just hanging on those almost invisible fine webs. I can't even see their mother even outside the community.

After getting a few pictures i tried disturbing the web with some little movements. 

Everybody moved downwards sliding on the web threads attached to the base of the plant they are in. Can you see the fine threads sparkling with the morning sunlight? They seem to be very strong, swirling pliantly with the wind. 

There they go, everybody's instinct is to come down for safety, maybe to hide on the ground. They can sense that their present predator is big maybe because of the strong movement of their web-house. Others just fell, maybe purposely or maybe they just slipped from the web, i don't know! The drama continues and i was so curious with my little experiment. 

After a few minutes, and after i am done with my photos i stopped moving the branch they are in. Just a few seconds of silence and they immediately rushed upwards again to their big original community. I just am not sure what happens to those that fell to the ground, i hope they can still come up to their safety again. Their pace is so fast, in a few seconds they are already up there again. The only signal or communication they have is the movement of their web and the branch the web is clinging. 

Spiderlings are hatched with that plenty of numbers because their predators are plenty, and a lot of them die while at their spiderling-hood stage. The number is nature's way of preserving the species through the few that will survive its harsh environment. I just did not have the time to observe more for their other characteristics as a group, nor to watch for any predator that might come here. Or probably with my presence for a few minutes, they were spared by the predators who are also scared of me. I went there again 2 weeks after, they were not there anymore. I hope that means they are already independent making their own lives, away from their spider siblings! 

Camera Critters

Nature Notes

Our World Tuesday

United Colors!

Camera Critters

Nature Notes

Minute Garden Dwellers

My newly planted hoyas are planted in pots hanging on a tube in between two fruit trees in the garden. I saw that spider webs easily appear on the hanging wires, much much faster than any hoya's growth.

I was checking and tending to the hoyas when i accidentally touched the underside of a leaf. I flipped the leaf and saw these scattered frenzy. I thought they are just eggs bursting from the egg mass, but wait, they are actually moving.

Suddenly, a string of white dusts seem to appear moving down along the webs down to another hoya leaf. When i scrutinized it and observed closely, they are very very small spider hatchlings. They suddenly travelled along the webs for fear of their lives. I observed closer, and they are so cute baby spiders!

They are queueing through the provided way of scape, the spider threads.  I guess the spiderlings went down on its own because of the insipient danger, my intrusion, or probably the mother instructed them to run for their lives. 

 They are almost invisible against space, just become obvious when they had this green leaf background.

The mother did not leave its position in the mass of webs supposedly its house under the leaf, clutching the egg mass with its very long legs. 

I've photographed the mother several times, and it didn't try to leave the nest at all,  guarding that mass i suppose is still an egg mass. I wonder why many hatchlings are already out, but still the mother guards this egg shell with its life! If not for the egg mass, it would have suddenly escaped with my constant movement and flipping of the leaf to take its photo. The head is almost transparent, as well as the legs. But the abdomen is horizontally lined and has black thorns. The full length of the mother's body is only about 5 mm, yes that short. The egg mass obviously is bigger than the mother. I don't even know yet what this spider is called, and i will study its habits later. I love being informed of the so many interesting residents in my garden world. 

Nature Notes

Our World Tuesday

My Web Searches

My web searches last weekend turned out very productive. I started the day with early breakfast. The morning temperatures these days are more comfortable than any parts of the year, so I have a grand time. I just went to the hedges, under the fruit trees, and even under the ornamental plants.

While you are searching the computer web, I was searching the spider webs! Here, I will try to show you some different web configurations, and how the occupants of the webs manage their stay. I tell you they are very interesting. I assure you no animal was hurt in the process and no "home" was destroyed.

 The above is the biggest spider commonly found in our property, the widest webs, and the most sticky. Adults can have >1 meter web diameter. They are also the most scary, at least to me! This is of the Nephila species. We have the bluish and the reddish species.

 The above is lovely in red, small body ~1.5cm long, with hairy legs. Its web doesn't look like a regular spider web, but just a few strands where it can cling on in space.

 This is a jumping spider, has a regular web configuration, but the quality of its weave is not very well planned and not proportionately distributed. Look at the above spaces between the strands, they are very irregular. I guess this is not a quality conscious homemaker!

 How about the above? The strands are so thickly placed, so conscientiously woven with almost equal distances. I can imagine it took a long time before the web is finished. The occupant is just ~1cm in body length except the legs. The web is only about 2 ft in diameter.

 This looks like a crab spider. It positions itself with the two pointed horns upwards as if it is the head. However, the head is actually below the body, only posing the horns as threats to predators, i guess! In contrast with the previous web, this one leaves a small area at the center without the concentric strands. I thought somehow that maybe it is still not finished, but i waited for 3 days, and it remained like that. Maybe that is just his style.

 This is the only spider i saw with a web patterned from the solar system.  And the strands and weave are so delicately spaced as if following real dimensions. I just am surprised why there is a need for that diagonal strand crossing the circular orbit, maybe it has a certain function. I am thinking of studying again, this time it will be Arachnidology, is it the study of spiders? I just conned it now!

 This is another shot of another Nephila web, we have a lot of them under the mango and coconut trees.

 This is also just ~1 cm in body length. I cannot get a good shot as the web always sway with slight wind. Its web is also built so differently from the rest of them. It is made of long strands connected to the vegetation around it, but the concentric circles are only made at the area near the center, where the owner dwell most of the time. I wish i can show a clear distinct picture of its back, as it seems there is a cross mark there. Maybe in their kingdom, the mark for poison is also an X, so that is his mark to scare predators. Until now, i still don't know what kind of animals prey on spiders!

And this is the most spectacular web i saw in their spider kingdom. There is no pattern at all.  This is totally the exact example of organized chaos, or probably chaotic disorder! I wonder how the owner is able to get in and out of this dwelling. It somehow tells the predators that nobody is using that space, so will not bother the occupant. I actually touched the owner because i am not sure if it is dead or alive. It ran fast, so I realized this is really his real design. Maybe he is the artist among them, and his style is abstract!