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Argiope in Web

This weekend was full of finding and photographing spiders. I spent Saturday morning at Mark Ost’s house in Back Bay. Mark and I spent a few hours looking for various insects and spiders, but we located a section of his yard containing many Salticids. I spent most of my time there.

We did find a few other types of spiders, like this beautiful Argiope to the left (click for full size). I believe it is the common Argiope aurantia, but it lacks the yellow coloring. It might be a juvenile.

I also spent some time at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens on Sunday, but I was less successful. I found one beautiful jumping spider with an iridescent green back. I’ve never seen one like this before. He was very attracted to the white lens diffusers on my camera flashes, and  jumped on them at least a dozen times during the half hour I followed him.

All photos taken with a Canon 5d Mark II, Canon Mp-e 65, and the Canon mt-24 ex twin flashes.

Argiope in Web

I’ve never seen a jumper with an ant as prey, but I found a few different instances of it.

Jumping spider with ant prey

Same spider as above, at around 3x magnification

Different species of jumper, also with and ant for food

Profile of above spider

Natural light, no flashes used

Jumper on my finger, 4x magnification (very small spider)

 The next three photos are of a jumping spider as found at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. Note the beautiful green coloring, I’ve never seen that before.

I think this is a soldier fly