A depraved spider, and assorted caterpillars
Nov 5, 2016 20:24:38 #
I am here posting some pictures I had taken a couple years ago from my early days of photographing arthropods with basic cameras. Most were taken with a small Nikon Coolpix, and I think the ones of small caterpillars were taken with an iphone with a clip-on macro lens. I am sorry I do not remember exactly.
The first one is a silver Argiope female with her boyfriend, but look closely: She has killed another spider, which is positioned below her. If you count the legs she is also evidently feeding on another spider. I do not know the story but it looks like another male Argiope who failed to please her.
The next several pictures are of Cecropia caterpillars that I had raised a couple years ago. I entered identifications of the instars with the pictures. The last pictures of that series shows how I raised them. Younger ones are given a small twig of leaves with one end wrapped in wet tissue, and older ones were put on a larger branch that was stood in a plastic vial of water. This is kept in a large plastic jar which you can see. The large air holes in the lid are needed to keep down humidity in the container. I chose to feed the caterpillars on garden lilac, but they can be started on a wide variety of common food plants.
The last picture is of a mature giant swallowtail caterpillar. During their earlier instars, these caterpillars are well known to be mimics of juicy bird droppings. But in this final instar it is hard to say what they are trying to look like. The scaly color pattern and glowering ridge on their thorax over a vague eye spot is suggestive of a snake.
The first one is a silver Argiope female with her boyfriend, but look closely: She has killed another spider, which is positioned below her. If you count the legs she is also evidently feeding on another spider. I do not know the story but it looks like another male Argiope who failed to please her.
The next several pictures are of Cecropia caterpillars that I had raised a couple years ago. I entered identifications of the instars with the pictures. The last pictures of that series shows how I raised them. Younger ones are given a small twig of leaves with one end wrapped in wet tissue, and older ones were put on a larger branch that was stood in a plastic vial of water. This is kept in a large plastic jar which you can see. The large air holes in the lid are needed to keep down humidity in the container. I chose to feed the caterpillars on garden lilac, but they can be started on a wide variety of common food plants.
The last picture is of a mature giant swallowtail caterpillar. During their earlier instars, these caterpillars are well known to be mimics of juicy bird droppings. But in this final instar it is hard to say what they are trying to look like. The scaly color pattern and glowering ridge on their thorax over a vague eye spot is suggestive of a snake.
Argiope
(Download)
Hatchling (left) and mature 1st instar
(Download)
2nd (left) and 3rd and 4th instars (right)
(Download)
Mature 4th instars
(Download)
(Download)
Fifth instar Giant swallowtail caterpillar
(Download)
Nov 5, 2016 21:57:01 #
i get giant swallowtail caterpillars on my orange tree every year but something must eat them because i have never found a pupa
Nov 6, 2016 12:18:08 #
tinusbum wrote:
I do know that larvae can wander pretty far from their food plant. And the pupa of this species is well camouflaged.i get giant swallowtail caterpillars on my orange tree every year but something must eat them because i have never found a pupa
Nov 6, 2016 14:19:24 #
A real femme fatale -- there are at least four more spiders than the prime mama!
Nov 7, 2016 06:35:39 #
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