This is the cricket that started the chain of events. What about those hyper-long antennae?
Here are the two wasps, taken from the video - not great but you get the idea.
Here our little lady (Parawixia dehaani) is wrapping a bee for dinner - dorsal and side. Note that she is missing her 4th right leg - so hangs on by one leg.
ventral and a little web repair - and again - with only 1 4th leg
Her cephalothorax seems quite flexible. Here you see it (right) and I can't find it (left). Her missing 4th right leg, though, is quite obvious.
These guys have 8 eyes, typically arranged in two rows of 4 eyes. Four eyes are easily identified at the front of her cephalothorax: two toward the center and one on either side. I have made a new discovery - flash photos of spiders can exhibit red eye as seen here. It seems that my flash is reflected in the two peripheral eyes as well as the left (spider's) central eye and appear orange.
Here are two presentations of camouflage - and on the left and right, a couple of the eyes have red eye
While letting the video do its thing - I was walking about and here was a skipper that was photo sensitive. Her wings were open (left) but after a flash - she closed her wings (right).
Then back to the spider - so many interesting aspects to her behavior. She seems a contortionist for sure
Here she is in the upside down camouflage configuration ( ventral side up:left) and rightside up camouflage configuration (dorsal side up: right)
Here is the wasp looking for dinner (my still camera is much better than the video camera)
Two more presentations
Then the fun began - a survey party appeared - which is quite unusual because almost no one visits my spider spot
Back to the wasp
Then our lady of unknown origin reappeared, the wasps left and she continued her dinner prep
And some web repair
Here is a bit of aerial engineering - you figure the web silk stresses Then she starts a slow getaway - after I stepped on a sensitive patch of grass
A bit of one arm web repair
then down
down
and into the camouflage configuration - what appears to be an innocent blob of something on the leaf. So the question for today is - how is the camouflage and escape behavior programmed?
Wow - what a morning
C. Frank Starmer