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2 December 2013
Monday macrobug: tube spiders
Today, a few spiders that live in cylindrical webs of their own construction… Exhibit A, the grass spider, although this one’s not in the grass: Exhibit B, an unidentified spider on one of my exterior lights: Creepy! Crawly! Tubular!
18 November 2013
Monday macrobug: Crab spider
Good Monday to you! Here’s a crab spider, perched on a threaded screw that’s part of a baby gate on our porch: A closer look: I like crab spiders. As with jumping spiders, I don’t find them especially heebie-jeebie-inducing.
16 September 2013
Monday macrobug: Garden spider
Found this lovely garden spider while working in the yard on the last day of August… It’s a big beastie; here’s a pencil tip for scale: I induced her to briefly face upward: …but she definitely preferred to be oriented head-down: I then crouched lower, and aimed the camera up, resulting in a different exposure and a different color “feel”… Then she got sick of me and my camera, and …
7 September 2013
Monday macrobug: Colonial spiders at the Fort Valley Library
I volunteer on Wednesdays at the Fort Valley Public Library. We have some bushes out front, and in the past month, I’ve noticed something about the bush closest to the library door… It’s having some trouble, and the trouble seems to be coming from… (( brace yourself )) … a colony of spiders! You’re seeing a single giant dense web there, occupied by many many individual spiders, and full of …
24 June 2013
Monday macrobug: Jumping spiders that “Attack the Block”
A few weeks ago, I started seeing a new kind of jumping spider around our house. It was distinctive primarily because of its iridescent green chelicerae (think of them as “jaws”). I took a couple of blurry shots, but nothing I considered good enough for “Monday macrobug” treatment… These spiders reminded me of the unique design for the alien invaders in the fun movie Attack the Block: Clearly, they all …
11 March 2013
Monday macrobug: Jumping spider
While the Monday Macrobug continues its official winter hiatus, we did have a fuzzy little jumping spider make an appearance in the house the other day: Did you see the @$#%ing ladybug hiding there in the background? Here’s a closer look at the spider: Jumping spiders are my favorite spiders – they seem like little mammals relative to the bulbous/spiky shapes that characterizes the spiders that I instinctually find so …
24 December 2012
Monday macrobug: Fishing spider
Found this fellow in my woodpile: Note the finger tip at lower left for scale. Here’s a close-up. I think it’s a fishing spider:
15 October 2012
Monday macrobug: Grass spiders with hatchlings
We’ve got plenty of spiders out here in the Fort Valley. Here’s a look at one common species: a sweet momma grass spider striding along, carrying dozens of infant spiderlings on her abdomen: How many children can you count? A week or so later, I saw another one, with a similar load:
17 August 2012
New macrobugs from the Bentley farm
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a “macrobug” photo. So here’s two for you: a harvestman (“daddy longlegs”), and a pelecinid wasp:
6 September 2011
Two more macrobugs
It’s that kind of day. Grasshopper? Cricket? Katydid? Some kind of orthopteran, anyhow. Not a full adult, to judge by the lack of well-formed wings. And, here’s a yellow crab spider:
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.