I've kept it for a couple of weeks in a jar with the pine and all the fruit flies I could collect. And he's grown; he's big enough to see even through the glass, a bit darker, and active; far too active. I haven't seen one like this, so I'll send some photos to BugGuide, but with any disturbance of his web, he panics and starts racing up one needle to the tip, back down, up the next, down ... BugGuide will get fuzzy photos; the best I can do.
But I did manage to capture his personality.
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| Hopping right along, so fast all his feet are in the air. |
He's so tiny that his legs are mostly transparent.
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| Caught at the tip of a needle, as he turned to run down. |
He's got two dark stripes down his back, divided by a broad yellowish, oak-leaf shape, stripes on the legs, a yellow belly and eight eyes. I'm glad I got a head shot; the placement and number of eyes helps to identify a spider. (Some have eight, some six.)
In the morning, I'll send these and a couple more to BugGuide.
It's not every day a gal gets a spider as a gift! And it's not every gal that would appreciate said spider!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not very knowledgeable about spiders, so I'm no help - but he is quite fascinating - and I love those eyes!!!
Wwell, I'm thoroughly impressed with your photos! What kind of camera do you use to capture such teeny details?
ReplyDeleteClytie; glad you liked the eyes. I almost didn't include them.
ReplyDeletePatricia, I'm using a point-and-shoot Sony Cyber-shot H55, with a home-made lens I cobbled together with lenses from binoculars and an old projector.
I have a couple of more expensive Olympus cameras, but this one does the best for macros, and it accepts my lens.
We must be two nuts of a kind. On my dining room table (not used for eating right now) I have a jar with a larger, also unidentified spider. My spider is happy eating the larva of flour moths. I haven't figured out how often I should feed him.... or how long I will keep him.
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