Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning

My little assassin bug has been haning out in the same place for 3 days now. What about tomorrow?

Another view

And one of those house spiders - with a residence under a sign

Another view: Achaeranea tepidariorum

With a bunch of kids

Earlier, a fly was trapped

and will be dinner for mom and the kids

Here she is preparing dinner

Just not to be left out - here is our caterpillar, munching away on a leaf

Then there was an unidentified spider, I thought initially maybe Gasteracantha, but there are not spikes. Matjaz Kuntner came to my rescue - this is Micrathena mitrata - and she decorates her web with small puff of silk. She was weaving her web and with the wind blowing, focus was a problem. Here are some of the better ones - but not great

Here you can see the small puffs of silk decorations near the center of her web.

Here is another view of her web decorations.

This was my first success with adding GPS data to the image Exif fields. Click for all the Exif data.

GPS Version ID                  : 2.2.0.0
GPS Latitude Ref                : North
GPS Longitude Ref               : West
GPS Altitude Ref                : Above Sea Level
GPS Altitude                    : 126 m
GPS Latitude                    : 35 deg 59' 38.40" N
GPS Longitude                   : 78 deg 56' 45.60" W
GPS Position                    : 35 deg 59' 38.40" N, 78 deg 56' 45.60" W

Here is this interesting insect close

C. Frank Starmer

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