#araneoidea

okay so i was browsing through old files and realised i never posted this cube diorama of a floodplain forest in Hell Creek done for one of #Paleostream's older art challenges in 2022

this is literally 3 years old. i fell off apparently...???

for a while there was a beautiful pair of Leaf-curling spiders living outside our door. as the name suggests, these spiders use a curled leaf in the centre of their web as a silk-lined retreat from predators. I've read that males and females will share a leaf, but these two were living in separate leaves close by each other.

the photo above is the female, feeding on a small beetle. the male is pictured below, with a much skinnier body plan, and a pair of long, rounded pedipalps.

Northern Saint Andrew's Cross Spider

A common garden orbweaver.

Argiope aetherea, “Northern Saint Andrew's Cross Spider”

Four-spotted orb weaver (Araneus quadratus)

A. rotundulus was one of the first posts I ever made on this blog. It feels good to be able to post this species again, this time through a better lens.

Saw my first whip spider today, such a long tail! when she was settled, she'd lay flat and look like a floating stick, but I sadly couldn't get a picture of that behaviour. Got some excellent macros of her face though!

Giant Golden Orb from earlier this year. found all along the eastern coast of Aus, and yet I've only seen one once :,) Such incredible colours on the females.