spiders
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Spring spider
Last week, on the first day of spring, a spider found itself in the tub.An American House Spider (I think), Parasteatoda tepidariorum. I got close with the camera and somehow brushed a line of silk, so that when I moved away, I inadvertently pulled the spider with me: it danced like a tiny puppet at…
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Spiderlings
Last month, I watched a spider feed heartily and then build a silken sac for her young. Two weeks ago, the young spiderlings emerged from the sac. And just sat there for several days. Then the mother spider disappeared. And a few days after that, all the little ones. In the outdoors, some young spiders…
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Drama in the corners
And in this corner, a click beetle, so named because they make a “click” when they flip up into the air (it helps them turn over should they find themselves belly-up) and a spider. The battle, such as it was, lasted for most of a day. I could hear the haunting click from a neighboring…
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Mud Cells
Two summers ago, a Black and Yellow Mud Dauber wasp built her nest in the Back 40 (inches). A new generation of these large, black-bodied wasps with yellow legs emerged in June of last year. This year I had one inside the house. Not here in Brooklyn, but at the family house in Massachusetts. This…
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Interior
Underneath the bathroom faucet: a small, pale spider.
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Arthropods of St. John Part I
An antennae-span of nearly three inches to greet the early risers.When this moth flew into the veranda, everyone thought it was a bat with it’s 4-inch wingspan.Katydids, part of the night chorus, could usually be found lazing around during the day. This one was caught in a brief rain shower.Saw the same species on Virgin…
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Orbweaver Requiem
I returned to the house Sunday afternoon to find Saturday’s spider on the floor. A single silk line connected my desk chair to the desk. Brooklyn Invertebrate CSI: The rear of the abdomen looks deflated, while the front is grotesquely distended. Parasite? Disease?
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Six ways of looking at a spider
While I was putting together yesterday’s post and eating three different kinds of New York state grapes from the farmer’s market, I noticed something alive in the middle of the air under my desk. It was slowly descending. And then rather more quickly ascending. She tried several times to crawl up onto the top of…
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Inside and Outside
I read somewhere recently that we, all of us, are always within two or three feet of a spider. There are untold billions of them in the world, and some of them do like the comforts of a less an immaculately kept house. This is one of (at least) two species that likes my bathroom.Right…
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Island Bugs
Ah, summer, season of buzzing and flying and biting! The insects are out in force. OK, there’s really not that much biting, per se. Seen last week on Nantucket: One of the green metallic bees, genus Agapostemon, also known as sweat bees, on chicory flower. Note the big bundles of pollen around the legs. A…
Backyard and Beyond 