We enjoy a bewildering array of arachnids on our half-acre shambles, everything from teeny emerald-green crab spiders peering from their pastel flower condominiums to gigantic (look away, phobics) peripatetic mygalomorphs (supposedly quite primitive but dude, you don't want to say that to their face) who glare at you from the middle of the toilet floor when you're busting for a wee at 5 in the morning. They finish a slow mental cigarette and you let them because they're venomous, can jump about 30cm and you're not wearing shoes. We once watched our old tabby Libby encounter a particularly large one; it leapt at her face repeatedly in a pretty amazing display of concerted aggression. Ichneumon wasps hunt them incessantly and can often be seen dragging their paralysed bodies out from under rocks to entomb with their grubs over summer. Nature is a strange place.
This tiny girl is about half the size of a short fingernail and insists on spinning her gleaming orb web across the passage beside my aloe bench. The Lovely R outdid himself with this difficult macro capture so yay him.
This tiny girl is about half the size of a short fingernail and insists on spinning her gleaming orb web across the passage beside my aloe bench. The Lovely R outdid himself with this difficult macro capture so yay him.
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