Monday 28 May 2012

How many critters can one plant hold?

This is the plant!
Common Mullein
Buster relaxes after showing me the bugs!
I took the day off yesterday. I didn't shovel any topsoil. I did a series of small chores, that no one but me would notice.
Hubby went to the ball game, for some relaxation. I relaxed by puttering, and got brown paint under my fingernails.
Buster was sitting on the edge of the septic bed.
It scared me, as I heard rustling and didn't know what was there.

Felix preferred stealth mode!
But as serendipity goes, my boys often lead me to new sights and sounds.

First was the large spider with the stripe down its back. Research is an interesting thing in this day and age. Any fool can name something, and any fool can believe him! I have many resources I go to to identify my mystery birds. Wiki sources are not reliable, I prefer to go to the university sites, which reputable authors.
There are many hits for this topic of 'spider with stripe down its back'. I first checked my insect book, then realized that they are not 'insects', as they have 8 legs. SIGH. Arachnids.



What further amazed me is that there were two, of the same size and same species on the same plant. Apparently boy scout spiders; sharing, sharing, sharing.
Ants, of course!


Could have been 50 of these Stink Bugs!
Ants eating caterpillar turd?




Can you see the spider at the bottom right?
I went out to the front yard, and began to photograph my white irises, with Bleeding Hearts nestled in and around them. I found another spider I had to look up. 
She was fascinating. With PINK stripes! I went back later and found her munching happily on a Flower Fly (Syrphidae), which is a Yellowjacket mimic. The larva eats aphids. The adults pollinate flowers.
This one isn't going to pollinate anything anymore. It's a dog eat dog world.















Stilt bugs (Neides muticus)
Then there was this, I think, pair. Sigh. I think they were happy. "Hugging" as we told our 4-year-old granddaughter one time, spotting a miniature horse mounting his friend!
There were insects everywhere!

Can you spot the wee red spider?

Wild Aster and friend

 
This macrophotography is harder than it looks!

Stink Bug
Its belly bright green.

What a cooperative dragonfly

5 comments:

Linda said...

wonderful closeups! I love these...not the spiders and bugs, but the photos!

Kay L. Davies said...

Well, a lot more than I needed to know about spiders, LOL, although the pink one was very cute, especially eating the wasp.
And I'm so glad we don't have stinkbugs here. We had them in the Okanagan Valley in BC when I was young, and I hated them.
Buster and Felix can always charm me, however.
K

Paula said...

That spider in the bleeding heart looks like it was made for this plant. Perfect camo! I never knew what a stink bug looked like until this post :)

EG CameraGirl said...

A neat look at some of the finer things in life. :))

Red said...

Awesome post! So many different insects! So much going on!