Photo Essays

Feb 21, 2009:Spider hunting with Yu, Gabriel and Yang Wang

Yu is a student in a double degree program between NUS and Waseda University, in Japan. Yu contacted me several weeks ago with many questions about Nephila. We arranged a time to visit and she came with her colleague, Gabriel. After our discussion, I invited them to go spider hunting with Wang Yang and myself. They agreed and we met this morning at the Queenstown MRT.

We met and walked over to Queensway Secondary School - and from there to our spider place. As we entered the grassy area, we saw a number of webs in the grass - a sure sign of funnel-web spiders. We looked and sure enough, there were the little ladies hiding in their hiding place. Yu tried to get a photo. From there we walked along the edge of the forest making a survey. Wang Yang and his curious eyes was the first to spot a jumping spider. He took many photos - all blurred and the spider jumped before Yu could get a photo - sigh. So here is our team

Gabriel found a small grasshopper that decided to ride on Gabriels hand. Thus started our morning. Gabriel's friendly grasshopper

Gabriels grasshopper

A green grasshopper

feb 21 1511 green grasshopper

Yu's photo of a Lynx spider

lynx spider

Yu's photo of a Frank

Frank

Yu's photo of a grasshopper

Grasshopper

Yu's photo of Wang Yang and me

Wang Yang and Frank

Frank's photo of a fly

feb 21 1522 fly

A skipper

feb 21 1528 skipper

Some sort of hopper

feb 21 1541 hopper of sorts

A yellow dragonfly

feb 21 1553 yellow dfly

A jumping spider

feb 21 1559 jumper

Yu's photo of the same jumping spider - much better

Jumping Spider

Frank, Yu and Gabriel

feb 21 1562 frank yu gabriel

Wang Yang

feb 21 1568 wang yang

Yu and Gabriel

feb 21 1569 yu gabriel

Wang Yang - self portrait

feb 21 1576 wang yang

From here, Yu and Gabriel went to Labrador park where usually there are many Nephila webs. They were not disappointed. It rained and they were able to see web repair in action - as well as explore the vibration response to plucking a strand of the web.

All in all - a great day for all of us.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning