Another Bug Battle

I’m starting to wonder if I should only blog about the struggles of aphids. They’re so small you’d think they’d only have to worry about larger predators, but no, they also have to beware of ladybug larva and tiny spiders (even tinier than last week’s spider).

Both of these bugs had sneaked into the house and were on the window sill when I saw them. The aphid was crawling along with the spider riding on its back.

The aphid reached the corner of the window and started climbing up, and by that time the spider must have realized it wasn’t having any success in bringing down its prey.

It eventually gave up and crawled off.

Seeing this result, I now wonder if the ladybug larva from this post was also too small to bring down a grown aphid. It might have had better luck because it had jaws, unlike this spider which has to inject venom to neutralize prey. It will have to settle for smaller prey until it grows bigger than the tip of a pen.

I was holding a pen up to show the size of the spider, and it jumped right onto the tip for a split second before jumping off. It was too perfect of an opportunity to get the shot focus. For anyone familiar with photography, I was holding the pen in one hand and the camera in the other hand, using a reversed lens with the aperture at f/22, so it’s not like I should have expected anything better with one attempt. I did think it was hilarious that the spider seemed to know exactly what I was trying to show.

Here’s the comparison shot I was meaning to do.

And now there are spider tracks everywhere around the window after the spider jumped onto the pen! Just kidding. That wouldn’t be funny.

Were you able to guess last week’s Macro Mystery object? Here’s the answer:

There will be no blog post next week, but I will still share a new macro mystery – Macro Mystery #9.

Do you think you know what this object/material is? Don’t rush, you have plenty of time to guess this one.