Vicious inhuman predator picture(s) of the day.
This afternoon, while I was puttering around inside the house, Russell suddenly called out, with great excitement, that a BIG SPIDER WAS EATING A LITTLE SPIDER. The best followed up with a "you need to come down and bring your camera right now!".
So I grabbed my camera and went downstairs. Russell and Silas were standing on the window seat, watching, with great fascination, as the biggest orb spider I've ever seen in my life killed, wrapped up, and sucked the guts out of what looked like it might have been a hornet or yellowjacket. After gaping at this silver-dollar sized arachnid for a minute or two, I pulled out the telephoto lens and went outside to try and take a picture or two.
After taking a few pictures from outside, I went back into the house to try and get a better shot through the window. While I was in the throes of trying to focus in on this spider (it may be huge, but it's also close, and both the Pentax and the Mk 1 eyeball autofocus were having a devil of a time getting the right focus), a big beetle flew into the web and, quicker than you could say Jack Robinson, was seized, poisoned, and wrapped up like a little christmas present for a midnight snack.
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Just replace the "" with an "@" in my email address. I 'hate' spam :-) ,,, Anyhow. What I was trying to figure out is what kind of spider this was; and wanted to know if you might have a clue. I have a lot of these things around the house here (about five or ten a day). And I would just like to know what I was dealing with.
I know that it isn't a brown recluse (thank God). But still I know that there are alot of other unfriendlies that aren't very pleasant to be bit by. I've already had two of these guys either crawl across my hand or foot when I'm not expecting them. sheesh!
It's just a common orb spider; as far as I know, the only thing they're poisonous to are small insects. The Willamette river valley does have a small population of black widows and brown recluse spiders, but I've never seen either type of them.
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Lovely.