A well-camouflaged green lynx spider (Peucetiaviridans) eating a honeybee (Florida, 10/9/21)
Green lynx spiders often hide around flowers to ambush nectar feeding insects, but they’re rather adaptable predators that track prey visually and will eat almost anything they can overpower. They even appear to have an occasional behavior where they enter the web of an orbweaver like a golden silk spider or an Argiope and eat the inhabitant, even if the prey spider is larger than themselves.
Dewdrop spiders (Argyrodes) are small silvery spiders that live in the webs of larger spiders, like this golden silk spider (Nephilaclavipes) whose massive web hosts several of them.
Argyrodes feed kleptoparasitically on insects trapped by the larger spider. In this case a dewdrop spider is sharing a dead honeybee with several jackal flies (Milichiidae), which are also specialized kleptoparasites of spiders and other predators.
ThoughArgyrodes are typically assumed to be freeloaders, studies have shown that their reflective silvery appearance can attract more moths and other prey to the host‘s web, and that they most often feed on leftovers and small prey that the host spider doesn’t want.
Shaw Brothers studios produced a series of four films based on Journey to the West - Monkey Goes West(1966),Princess Iron Fan(1966),The Cave of Silken Web (1967), and The Land of Many Perfumes (1968). I’ve read wonderful things about the other three films, however The Cave of Silken Web (to my knowledge) is the only one of the series that was ever released on DVD in the US.
I’m a HUGE fan of the Monkey King and Journey to the West, so I’ll take what I can get. And even if I never succeed in obtaining an/or viewing the other three films in the series, I’ll be forever happy with The Cave of Silken Web for one monumental reason:
Singing and dancing spider girls.
Seven of them!
Forget the Black Widow! These are the only spider women I need!
These were seven of the biggest female stars working for Shaw Brothers at the time, and all that star power will be put to work to vex the Monkey King and his gang!
I tell ya, kids, they just don’t make movies like this anymore!
Every year I see dry ice marketed for use by campers, and it’s certainly effective for keeping things cooler longer, but I never see anyone talk about the fact that it’s a tick magnet, to the point that a cooler containing dry ice, even fully closed, is the go-to lure used by field researchers who WANT to attract as many ticks as possible. Here are some tick traps in action:
The fact that people are told to take dry ice with them into the woods, and not told that this is a thing, feels kind of glaring to me???
This happens because dry ice is solid carbon dioxide, and the carbon dioxide in our breath is what ticks use to track us. Not just ticks, either; mosquitoes and other blood-feeding organisms also rely on it. I’ve never been camping myself, but I imagine if you do use dry ice, you should keep it away from where you intend to sit, eat or sleep.
I’m not the biggest fan of spiders (to my shame), but I just can’t help but smile at the happy face spider. Endemic to the Hawaiian archipelago, these cheerful arachnids were named for the markings on their abdomens, bearing semblance to a smiling human face. The name can be a bit misleading though as the species has several morphs across the archipelago, some of which look very different to their namesake.
During the trip to southeast Queensland, Australia, taken by the University of California (Berkeley) grad student and a friend, the brilliant sparklemuffin(Maratus jactatus) wasn’t the only new peacock spider they discovered (and subsequently shamed named), so allow me to present to you skeletorus! Given the name for the males’ eerily bonelike white-on-black markings, the almost entirely (save for the fetching flecks of blue on the abdomen) monochrome skeletorus is an anomaly among peacock spiders (Maratus), which were named for the males’ colourful patterning and courtship displays, resembling those of male peafowl.
If you’re not a fan of arachnids, then you obviously haven’t seen sparklemuffinbefore! For reasons you can figure out yourself, sparklemuffin was the nickname created Madeline Girard (a graduate student at the University of California), who also discovered the species.
At every level, insects and (arachnids) are around us, whether it be a fruit fly or those fucking stink bugs that we get in the house everysingle winter, they’re around us whether we like it or not. Chitinous critters corral themselves into crannies or cowardly fly cross the room when we’re trying to kill them, but what if we used these cool carapaced creatures to our advantage instead of them being a general annoyance, no i’m not talking about beekeeping or honeybees or even those bee hotels that don’t really work, I’m talking farming them, cooking them, seasoning them, dehydrating them, etc. We’ve all heard that insects are the purest form of protein as a joke when someone accidentally swallows a bug, but this little joke is actually true, specifically with crickets. Crickets contain 2-3 times more complete protein than a beef steak on the same weight basis and contain no cholesterol and fat, on top of it all they contain more iron and contain fiber as well. That’s not even including the ecological benefits, such as water usage, waste disposal, carbon emissions, and runoff from improper animal waste disposal.
Part II: Pollination
Like I said above, I don’t condone owning honeybees, not out of a moral stance or anything, they’re ecologically unsafe, they compete with native bees and usually end up winning due to sheer numbers. I’m talking about mason bees and growing habitats for them, yes growing habitats, mason bees use reeds to make their hives, so grow some pop grass (horsetail reed) and watch the magic happen, preferably not too close though. Spending money on those bee houses isn’t a good idea anyhow, they’re a breeding ground for diseases and mostly get occupied by native wasps, which isn’t a bad thing, having natural predators around a certain area is a very good thing, but they’re not pollinators, which is the focus right now.
Part III: Permaculture
Insects and arachnids are essential members of our ecosystem and play a vital part in keeping it balanced, whether it be a common fly laying eggs on a carrion for decomposition or a butterfly doing its butterfly thing of being pretty and drinking nectar, they all serve a purpose, even the annoying bastards like mosquitoes or those fucking stinkbugs. Some may even serve a culinary purpose in the future, like meal-worms, crickets, and grasshoppers being the most common forms. These little creatures make a significant impact together, just like us.
This has been it for me babes, this has been @punkofsunshine ,I’ll be checking in tomorrow. Have a nice night.
