Posted in Arachnids, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and Yellow Garden Orbweaver spider, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Common Whitetail, Common Whitetail dragonfly, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, Plathemis lydia, Tamron 180mm on September 11, 2020| 25 Comments »
Dragonflies are fierce predators that eat a wide variety of insects. However, predators can easily become prey, as was the case with this male Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) that encountered a Black and Yellow Garden Orbweaver Spider (Argiope aurantia). When I spotted this pair last Friday at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, the spider had already immobilized the dragonfly and may have been injecting it with venom at that moment.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, cicada, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 180mm, Woodbridge VA on August 26, 2020| 18 Comments »
Have you ever tried to wrap a present that is large and awkwardly shaped? I have childhood memories of helping my parents wrap tricycles and wagons for my younger siblings on Christmas Eve. No matter how much wrapping paper I used, it was pretty obvious what was underneath the wrapping.
I have watched Black and Yellow Garden Spiders (Argiope aurantia) capture prey multiple times. After the initial capture, the spider wraps up its prey in a special kind of silk that looks like a long gauze bandage. (Check out my 2014 posting called “Wrapping up a meal” for a more detailed explanation and some close-up shots of the wrapping process.)
When I spotted this Black and Yellow Garden Spider on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, I could see from a distance that the spider had captured something that was as large as it was, but I could not determine what it was. Once I got closer, I could see that the spider had awkwardly wrapped up what appeared to be a large cicada—it was impossible to hide the shape of the cicada’s large wings.
At some point in this process the spider injects venom into the prey, killing it and liquefying its internal organs for consumption. I cannot tell for sure if that is what the spider was doing at the moment I captured this image, but the position of the spider’s body suggests that possibility.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and Yellow Garden Orbweaver spider, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, Tamron 180mm on August 12, 2020| 9 Comments »
As I have observed animals, birds, and animals, I have noticed that sometimes the male is larger than the female and sometimes the opposite is the case. Quite often the size difference is so slight that you have to rely on other characteristics to try to determine the gender of a subject.
When it comes to spiders, though, the size difference is shockingly large—the male is often one quarter the size of the female or even smaller. On Monday I spotted my first black and yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia) of the season. I have long been fascinated with these large spiders and the distinctive zigzag pattern that they weave into their webs.
When I looked at my images on my computer, I was surprised to see that there was a second, smaller spider just to the left and behind the main subject. Could this possibly be a male garden spider? According to Wikipedia, males range in size from .2-.35 inches (5-9 mm) and females range in size from .75 to 1.1 inches (18 to 28 mm), so the size differential seems about right. Additional the smaller spider looks like photos I was able to find of male garden spiders.
Spider mating can hazardous for male spiders. In some species, if the male is rejected by the female, she eats him. I thought that might be the case for these garden spiders, but came across a fascinating article at newscientist.com with the sensationalist title “Spider sex causes spontaneous death” that suggests something stranger than cannibalism.
According to a study conducted at Concordia University and the University of California, “Researchers found that for male orb-weaving spiders of the species Argiope aurantia completing copulation leads to certain death. The deceased suitor’s corpse is then trapped in the female genitalia. This may be a strategy to prevent other males from subsequently mating with the female, say the scientists.” The scientists determined that the female did nothing to kill the males who died spontaneously and concluded, “The females do sometimes remove and devour their dead mates. But the researchers do not think the death program evolved to give her a post-sex snack, as the males are too tiny to provide much nutrition.”
Nature can be wild, weird, and wonderful and endlessly fascinating. I guess that is what prompted the scientists to carefully study 100 pairs of spiders mating. 🙂
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Common Whitetail dragonfly, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, Plathemis lydia, Tamron 180mm on August 28, 2019| 5 Comments »
How do spiders decide where to place their webs? Is there some special secret that is passed on from generation to generation about optimal web placement for capturing prey? I know that human fisherman and trappers look for specific conditions and wonder if it is the same with spiders.
Whatever the case, this Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) appears to have mastered her trapping skills and looks to have caught both a female Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) and what I think is some kind of female grasshopper. I am not really sure about the latter victim, but that is what I believe the green-colored object is in the image.
Often I see the webs of this kind of spider in fairly thick vegetation, but this web was hanging in mid-air about six feet high at the edge of a small pond last weekend at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge. The murky grayness in the upper right portion of the image is the water of the pond. In the left hand side you can see some of the web strands that tenuously connected the web to some nearby vegetation. This spider would not have one any contests for the beauty of its web, but there is no arguing with its success in capturing prey.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, Tamron 180mm, zigzag spider on August 24, 2019| 7 Comments »
Some people see spiders as creepy and others see them as cool. I am definitely in the latter category and was happy to spot this Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) during a recent trip to Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge.
I love the zigzag pattern that is a distinctive characteristic of the webs constructed by this species of spider and was thrilled that I managed to capture the zigzag in this shot. This spider is pretty common and has a lot of different common names including zigzag spider, writing spider, yellow garden spider, and golden garden spider. Zigzag Spiders can get to be pretty big and I have seen them capture large prey including, alas, dragonflies. It is amazing to see how fast the spider is able to wrap up its captured prey in web material. In case you have never witnessed the process, here’s a link to a 2017 posting that shows a spider wrapping up a freshly caught damselfly.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbot Wetland Refuge, Tamron 180mm on September 17, 2018| 12 Comments »
When you shoot with a zoom lens, you can change the look of an image without moving from where you are standing. That can be an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage, because it can discourage you from exploring different angles or different perspectives.
I really enjoy shooting with a lens of a fixed focal length, especially my macro lens, because it forces me to think more about composition. If I decide that I want the subject to be larger in the frame, I have to move physically closer to the subject. If the terrain doesn’t let me get any closer, then I have to consciously consider how else I could frame the shot.
This past weekend I saw a lot of black and yellow garden spiders (Argiope aurantia) when I was exploring Jackson Miles Wetland Refuge, a small park not too far from where I live. Some of the spiders were in bushes and others were overhanging the water of a small pond. It was a fun challenge to figure out how to photograph the spiders in different and interesting ways.
In the first shot, I decided to shoot the spider from the side rather than from the front as I normally do. I was delighted to see the way the the shape of the vegetation in the background almost matched the shape of the spider’s legs.
I also photographed the spider in the second image from the side, but the leafy backdrop and the inclusion of more of the spider’s web gives the image a completely different feel as compared to the first one.
When I saw the spider in the third image overhanging the water, I loved the shape of its body and its extended legs. If I had had a zoom lens, I am pretty sure I would have zoomed in on the spider. When processing the image, I was also tempted to crop in closely. I remember when I was shooting, though, that I deliberately included the vegetation on the left hand side, because I liked the way that it looked. So the image that you see is pretty much the one that I chose when I shot it, having zoomed in as closely as my feet would allow (without getting really wet). Despite my normal desire to fill my frame with my subject, I think it was good that I was not able to do so in this case.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, Summer, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 180mm, Woodbridge VA on July 11, 2018| 11 Comments »
Even if you find spiders a bit creepy (which I don’t), you can’t help but admire the beauty and artistry of their webs. This spider, which I think is a Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia), went a little crazy with its zigzag pattern this past weekend at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Most of the time the webs of these spiders have a single zigzag pattern that leads to the center of the web. This spider, which seemed smaller than many of the others of this species that I have seen, for some unknown reason decided to repeat the pattern multiple times, which helped me to spot the web more easily.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Art, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, spider web, Tamron 150-600mm, Woodbridge VA on September 17, 2017| 13 Comments »
Although some folks find spiders to be creepy, I look at them as wonderfully creative architects and artists and I was thrilled to capture this image of one in its web that I spotted early yesterday morning at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I have found that early morning is the best time to get shots of spider webs and they tend to show up best in shots that are backlit, which is to say that light is shining from the front. In this case I tried to frame the shot carefully for maximum effect and did not have to crop the image at all.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, damselfly, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Big Bluet, Black and yellow garden spider, bluet damselfly, Canon 50D, damselfly, Enallagma civile, Enallagma durum, Familiar Bluet, Familiar Bluet damselfly, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 150-600mm, Woodbridge VA on September 11, 2017| 4 Comments »
When a Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) traps a prey in its web, it often moves so quickly to wrap it up completely that it is difficult to identify the prey. That was not the case with the damselfly that I spotted yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge as it was being encased in a silken shroud.
The damselfly looks to be a bluet damselfly and if pressed, I’d guess that it might be a Familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile) or possibly a Big Bluet (Enallagma durum). The spider seems to be experiencing the same kind of problem that I encounter when I am trying to wrap an awkwardly-shaped present at Christmas time—it is hard to be neat and tidy, the process uses up lots of wrapping material, and the package always end up irregularly shaped and easy to identify.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Black and Yellow Garden Orbweaver spider, Black and yellow garden spider, Canon 50D, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 180mm, Woodbridge VA on August 28, 2017| 6 Comments »
“Beautiful Spider”—I know that some people would consider that an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. I, however, am fascinated with spiders and photographed this Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge as carefully as if I were doing a beauty shot in a photo studio. The spider had constructed her web on some vegetation overhanging a small pond, which is why I was able to get such an uncluttered gray background.
Earlier this month I captured an image of a spider of the same species while exploring Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge—this seems to be the prime season for these spiders, which I have seen at multiple locations. This image shows well the amazing reach of the spider’s amazingly long legs and, as was the case in the first image, shows the ziz-zag portion of the web that is associated with this species.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
