Tag: spider

Near and Far

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A couple of gold and black images from the last few days. As I was editing the spider, I was struck by the similarity in colour palette with a moon shot I got earlier in the week.

One was 3.84cm from the lens, the other 384,000km.

Otherwise: same.

The spider is one of the Golden Orb Spiders (Family Nephilidae). This one, measuring almost 100mm from one tip of leg to the other, with a body size of just over 25mm would be a female. You rarely see the males because they’re only about 5mm long. Well, it has been chilly lately, to be fair.

Unusually, however, was this one being tucked in the corner of the wall near the braai. . We usually see them on huge, strong webs in the back of the garden. I’ve never seen one out of the safety of its web before, and I’m not sure what has prompted this behaviour.

You should be aware that these spiders – though big and a bit scary looking (mainly thanks to the face of the tortured demon trying to escape from within its back) – are completely harmless.

The other photo? And (almost) full moon rising in behind a local Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) tree taken from the front of the house on Tuesday evening.

You should also be aware that the moon and the tree are also both harmless.

Wild Life

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Yeah, it’s not. Anything but, actually. We’re all happily lazing around in the Easter sunshine, enjoying doing very little. And that’s just fine.

The dirt road through to town is in such a terrible condition that you wouldn’t want to use it unless you had to anyway, so local is lekker. Cape Agulhas is a diverse, rural municipality, home to some interesting nooks and crannies*, but considering the number of dirt roads it has, to only own one grader seems like a risky move.

The grader is currently in Napier. The road to town, isn’t.

I’m going to have a wander down to the beach a little later, but I’ve been playing with the camera in the back garden here, looking at what’s around and trying to get a few simple shots, like this one.

Or these two:

That’s a Brown Button Spider and a Speckled Mousebird. If one of them bites you, you’ll need medical attention. I’m sure you can work out which one, but maybe just for safety, it’s best that you avoid the nibbly end of them both.

* 10 points if you got that reference

“Again”

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This headline would be bad enough…

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But it gets SO much worse when you read the whole thing:

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Eina.

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Of the toilet, guys. The rim of the toilet.

This really is unlucky, but it does serve “Jordan” right for living in Australia, where even the spiders are dangerous, and you shouldn’t dangle anything tempting in front of them.

Here in South Africa, we do have some nasties: snakes and scorpions and yes, some spiders spring to mind (oh, and lions), but twice-biting spiders in your PortaPotty? Less so.

Spiderfan

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While all the world was watching the  swimming gala, I’d spotted this (not so) little guy hiding nearby, cheering from the sidelines:

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Not being an arachnidologist (and not even believing that that word even exists), I’m not sure what sort of spider it is, although I am relatively sure that it is a spider.
I’ll get the full size version up on Flickr in the near future.