I noticed that in the front border of the house, the ferns and Mother-in-Law’s Tongue or Snake Plant (Sansevieria Trifasciata) needed weeding and cutting back as there was foliage up against the house, a handy highway for ants and centipedes and who knows what else. The only problem is that, at this time of year, this little garden is guarded by a wall of spiders.
These three Hawaiian Garden Spiders are just a few of that kind there, and they’re accompanied by the usual mass of crab spiders and one or two others I’m not familiar with. I wouldn’t mind moving the crab spiders, whose main activity seems to be to build webs in places that mean they’ll end up wrapped around my head. But the garden spiders, I have a soft spot for. The females are quite beautiful and the males, while drab and tiny, are very watchable as they try to mate with the mighty females.
I guess the weeds can wait for another week or two.
I saw this Xuthus Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio xuthus) flitting by a window at home. This is how I most often spot them and by the time I go outside, they’re nowhere to be seen. Still, I’m a sucker for butterflies, so I grabbed my camera and headed out.
Looking around, I couldn’t see any sign of it. I was about to give up the search when I saw movement by a tangerine tree. I should have anticipated this because the butterfly is also known as the Citrus Swallowtail (and Asian Swallowtail). I headed over and there was the butterfly, not only hanging around, but also settling briefly as it flew around the tree. I thought it must be feeding or possibly laying eggs, but it just seemed to be stopping at leaves, and later I saw that its markings meant this was most likely a male, so not laying eggs.
However, the butterfly was not alone. Winter is crab spider season and they love building communal webs in and between the tangerine trees. It’s a hazard for me when I’m collecting fruit, but for the butterfly it’s a potential death trap. While I watched, I did see this one get stuck once, but swallowtails are big butterflies and it was able to shake itself loose.
When I first saw this spider on the front door, I thought it was a small Hawaiian Garden Spider. But after it had been there a while I got a closer look and realized it was something else and that it wasn’t going to get any bigger. I don’t know what kind of spider it is, and I don’t know if it’s going to survive there, since I’ve never seen it catch anything, but I like the shadow it casts on the door.
My house has been surrounded by spiders and their webs for most of the winter. One female Hawaiian Garden Spider has a web which angles across the living room window. I can follow the activities there from the comfort of the couch.
One morning, I raised the window blind and found this scene. The large, yellow-backed spider is the female. The much smaller drab, brown spider above her is the male, and when a male is seen on a female’s web there’s only one reason – he’s looking to mate with her. I’m not sure what the third character in this scene is. It might be a mango beetle, but it was securely trussed to the web.
What happened can be seen in the gallery. The male tried his mating moves, the female remained largely unmoved. Much of the time the male stayed on the relatively safe opposite side of the web to the female, but to mate he must venture to the other side. When he did, sometimes the female swung into action. Mostly, she seemed responsive, but one time the male disappeared in an instant. Then I saw him climbing back up the thread he’d dropped on. Something must have gone awry, but no harm done. Through all this activity, the beetle looked on, waving its little legs and antennae.
The presence of the beetle seemed to affect the delicate negotiations going on between the spiders. Sometimes, the male went over to the beetle and sort of prodded at it, but nothing more. In the early evening, the female lost patience. She straddled the beetle, shot out strands of threads, and rebound the beetle as she spun it with her legs. It turned like a rotisserie chicken in overdrive. I didn’t get photos of this as the light was fading.
Next morning, nothing much had changed. The female was still the central figure, the male still holding his position. The only difference is that the beetle had managed to push its legs and head through the engulfing threads and it was back to waving its little legs and antennae. Later that day, the male appeared to successfully mate with the female and escape alive. I last saw him wandering over to the next web along where he positioned himself carefully on the opposite side of the web spun by another large female.
The next day, there was still a female on the web but I think it was a different, smaller one than the one in these photos. The beetle was still there, still waving its little legs and antennae. That evening, the new female did the rotisserie chicken move on the beetle and retrussed it. Next morning, the beetle had freed its legs and head again and was waving its legs and antennae again.
The following day, only the new female spider could be seen!
Posted in response to this month’s Becky’s Squares challenge theme of ‘Odd.’ See more responses here.
Outside my bathroom window, a colony of crab spiders has created a vast network of webs between the house and utility lines. The image (bottom photo) would have been a good one for Halloween.
In amongst the crab spiders, a female Hawaiian garden spider has staked out a spot. It’s close to the window and I get a good view of what she’s up to. Usually there are one or two little cocoons of white webbing where she has captured and stashed a wee bug for later.
On this morning I glanced outside and saw a large brown shape stuck in the web and lightly wrapped in white. So I went outside and took the top photo of the unfortunate victim. When I looked at it, I realized the garden spider wasn’t the only one in the photo. I noticed a much smaller spider on the stick insect. So I went out again and took the second photo.
I don’t know what kind of spider it is, but I liked its shiny metallic abdomen. I assume that spider was in the process of snagging itself a free meal. The garden spider didn’t seen too bothered, I presume because she figured such a small spider wasn’t going to deplete her larder very much.
The current Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Close ups and Macros.’ See more responses here. Here’s a selection of some little creatures up close and personal.
A bee on a clover flower.
A wandering glider dragonfly rests on a stalk.
A female Hawaiian garden spider on her web.
A grasshopper (Schistocerca nitens) sunning itself.
Run for your life, it’s a giant African land snail!
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Summer Bugs.’ (See more responses here.) To the best of my knowledge, Hawaii’s bugs are pretty much the same year-round. Here are some of them.
The top photo shows a bee showing impressive balance on a maiapilo flower.
Next up, clockwise from top left: Getting down to eye level with a juvenile praying mantis. A painted lady butterfly on a kiawe tree. A katydid wondering what it’s done to deserve this much attention. A seven-spotted lady beetle being watched.
The final gallery: Top left: A mango flower beetle explores a spider lily. Top right: A watchful cane spider wondering if it should run, very fast, away. Bottom left: A Hawaiian carpenter ant (Camponotus variegatus), one of too many that have taken up residence in the house. Bottom right: A rusty millipede deciding that it’s all too much!
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Rainy Day.’ See more responses here.
I had just finished my walk around Upolu Airport when the weather closed in. Usually, clouds and rain are blown in by the northeast trade winds, but on this day a system was moving in from the west. I’d been watching its progress as I walked, but still got caught out as it moved faster than I expected. Still, I did make it back to the car, waiting for me in the wet parking lot, before the next deluge arrived (top photo).
The crab spiders didn’t seem to mind the weather, and the raindrops made a picture of their webs (middle photo). It also made them easier to see so that I could avoid my usual trick of blundering into them and having webs wrapped around my head.
On the drive home, after my walk, I carved an avenue of spray as I motored along the puddled road (bottom photo).
Graham's Island 