by Grania
Just as filler with your morning coffee, here are two immensely cute spiders. And yes, usually the adjective “cute” doesn’t belong anywhere near the noun “spider”.
Click on the white arrow in the Tweet to play the mp4 file mislabeled as gif.
@AmyAmylou1993 @albertisaurus @HeatherHastie @susanewington @XAndrewww pic.twitter.com/cGdy5NNPPL
— Rebecca (@easylife1978) September 21, 2015
The spider in the video is a Spiny Backed Orb Weaver Spider (Gasteracantha cancriformis). They’re pretty small, never getting much bigger than 13 mm. I’m not sure what the top spider is though. Can anyone identify it?
Hat-tip: Heather
If you want something other than cute take a look at this halibut from Norway
http://www.nrk.no/troms/_-vi-var-heilt-_utpeist_-da-vi-fekk-ho-inn_-1.12566432
That’s some serious bit of fish!
Posted just for the halibut, didnt’chya?
I caught a 204 pounder (93 kg) in Alaska once…that was one tough fight. I can’t imagine catching one this size.
The spider of the big eyes is a jumping spider–afraid that’s as specific as I can get! Someone else may know.
Yes, that’s what it thought it was. (But I’m no expert!) And they are cute.
cr
This summer I took pictures of spiny backed orb weavers while in New Jersey. I tried really hard to get a dorsal view of them, but it proved impossible as their very odd bottom-heavy shape meant that the dorsal side always faced down. The ones I saw had black spines, and other varieties are yellow instead of white. I think these more colorful ones are more common farther South.
Down my way the colorful ones, like the one shown above, are everywhere. If you go for a walk through the bush, particularly in the early morning, you can’t help but run into their webs. No matter which direction you try to dodge there is another one there you didn’t see. I’ll have to see if I can get a picture that shows how numerous they are. They are so tiny though that I don’t think they or their webs would be very visible in a wide shot.
I ones I saw up north were small, but I would say the adults had an abdomen the size of a pea. So they were not really tiny.
Around here (Colorado Springs), we have spiders that mimic juniper buds. I think (?) my pet spider is Araneus gemmoides, a so-called “cat-faced” spider. When they are small, they tuck their legs in and perfectly mimic those little brown juniper buds while they wait for noms.
Right now, I have a huge momma spider on the front stoop getting ready to repopulate the juniper bushes. I’m normally spider-phobic, but for some reason (familiarity?) these little guys seem as cute to me as the jumpers around here.
(am finally testing my WordPress page, barely edited off of default settings – the above links to my first post. I hope this works.)
The juniper bud link didn’t come through… trying again. The smaller versions of this spider curl up into perfect mimics of these buds in the spring.
That is a cool looking spider…don’t know about cute, though it does look ‘cartoony’.
When I first saw the pic, I thought it was a cartoon. I didn’t know there were spiders that looked like that.
Great imaginations imagine alike. 🙂
I just watched the video, and it’s not the one I thought I sent Jerry. There’s another that shows it weaving its whole web (unfortunately accompanied by a rendition of ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ designed for kids).
This what I meant to send Jerry: https://youtu.be/hv05bDLk4Sk
This is the link to the full 12 minute video of this spider spinning a web:
Looks to me like the second one is imitating bird droppings, complete with “splashes” going out to the side!
Reblogged this on Nina's Soap Bubble Box and commented:
I used to be really phobic about spiders, even images.
I blame Gilligan’s Island for the terrible cave spider episode I saw way back in syndication
but I have realized so few of them are dangerous to people
and I have become every aware of how dangerous people are.
so phobia shifts…. these are too much cuteness
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the commentariat here, react to spiders in this fashion. (On seeing a spider, a woman in Indiana jumps from moving car, which winds up entangled with a school bus.)
A few years ago I had an infestation of spiny backed orb weavers in my yard in Austin, TX, but their coloration was yellow with black spikes. Here’s one of the pictures I took.
http://tinyurl.com/sbow01
I also thought it looked like a cartoon, specifically “Hello Kitty”.
http://tinyurl.com/sbow02