Rayetta's Butterflies - Hmmm!
This is not a butterfly. It's not even a brown recluse. But it is an arthropod. We couldn't find any brown recluses which is unusual. In fact, we could only find three spiders and they were all this one. Perhaps the other spiders aren't out or we didn't survey the appropriate habitats.
The rainy cold weather has limited us to just a few habitat areas mostly in the garage where this spider is usually common. It is a messy little spider that always has dust bunnies it what passes for a web, really just a spun mess, like cotton candy that's been dropped and rolled across the fair ground. The favored prey of this spider appears to be isopods.
These little spiders seldom climb more than 10cm vertically. They seem to like those areas where shelving uprights or furniture or appliances intersect the floor. So getting on level with this one was a challenge. I finally resorted to laying the tripod on the cold concrete floor and aiming the camera at a below horizontal angle. The only way to focus was to move the tripod back and forth. Praise the Goddess for LCDs.
Anyway, here's the spider practice pictures. This one is with a 10 diopter. Alas, that out of focus thingy sticking up over the poor little spider's left shoulder is likely to be one of the spiders legs, the second leg from the other side which must have inadvertently broken off when Crumby was brushing cobwebs off the spider. Crumby can be like a bull in a china shop.
This one is with an old Sears 50mm autofocus lens screwed on to the C 5060 backwards. Depth of focus is an issue either way. This second picture was taken before I made Crumby move some of the cobwebs out of the way.
Once we were sick and tired of sitting on the floor in the garage we moved to the laboratory to take practice photos of an acorn Crumby found. Quercus shumardii is the darling oak of mall landscapers in these parts. That tells you where Crumby found this acorn.
Acorns are good subjects for macro depth of field practice, especially a great big acorn like this one. Note the interesting apiculus.
No spiders or acorns were killed during this practice session and the spider losing its leg was purely accidental.
Anyone that wishes to learn what their county extension agent knows about anything or everything, from acorns all the way past spiders, should call her or him up on the phone. But remember, a county extension agent only knows enough to be dangerous.
The rainy cold weather has limited us to just a few habitat areas mostly in the garage where this spider is usually common. It is a messy little spider that always has dust bunnies it what passes for a web, really just a spun mess, like cotton candy that's been dropped and rolled across the fair ground. The favored prey of this spider appears to be isopods.
These little spiders seldom climb more than 10cm vertically. They seem to like those areas where shelving uprights or furniture or appliances intersect the floor. So getting on level with this one was a challenge. I finally resorted to laying the tripod on the cold concrete floor and aiming the camera at a below horizontal angle. The only way to focus was to move the tripod back and forth. Praise the Goddess for LCDs.
Anyway, here's the spider practice pictures. This one is with a 10 diopter. Alas, that out of focus thingy sticking up over the poor little spider's left shoulder is likely to be one of the spiders legs, the second leg from the other side which must have inadvertently broken off when Crumby was brushing cobwebs off the spider. Crumby can be like a bull in a china shop. 
This one is with an old Sears 50mm autofocus lens screwed on to the C 5060 backwards. Depth of focus is an issue either way. This second picture was taken before I made Crumby move some of the cobwebs out of the way. 
Once we were sick and tired of sitting on the floor in the garage we moved to the laboratory to take practice photos of an acorn Crumby found. Quercus shumardii is the darling oak of mall landscapers in these parts. That tells you where Crumby found this acorn. Acorns are good subjects for macro depth of field practice, especially a great big acorn like this one. Note the interesting apiculus.
No spiders or acorns were killed during this practice session and the spider losing its leg was purely accidental.
Anyone that wishes to learn what their county extension agent knows about anything or everything, from acorns all the way past spiders, should call her or him up on the phone. But remember, a county extension agent only knows enough to be dangerous.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, January 14, 2007
2 Comments:
Hello Ray:
Where are you blogging from? I am looking for some Shumard Oak acorns from the northern part of its range...Missouri or Indiana.
Sorry. No help here JoeMama. Central Texas is Q. texana, and most of the shumards are bought at the nursery stores. We do have some volunteers from the neighbor's yard but they have not produced any acorns yet.
Ray
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