End of Year Recap Part 1

Hello there!

     It has been quite some time since I last posted. My first semester of college wasn't particularly challenging, and I definitely had enough time to post, but I was lazy and didn't. I'll try to run through the highlights of as much of the past few months as I can. I'll have to divide the material into two posts, but hopefully I can make it entertaining.

Ross Barnett Reservoir 

     A friend from church, Bro. Williams, took me out on the Rez in his bass boat early one August morning. Knowing my interest in bugs, plants, and wildlife in general, he figured it would make a good going away gift for the last weekend before I started college at Mississippi State University. He was correct. As the sunrise illuminated the intricacies of the clouds against the pale sky, we slid out of the harbor through patches of plate-sized lotus flowers and meandered to the mouth of the Pearl River. 

Nelumbo lutea, the American Water Lotus, visited by a skipper.

Nymphaea odorata, the American Water Lily

 "Meandered" is incorrect. Almost immediately, I lost my broad-rimmed hat to the wind and we had to make a u-turn to retrieve it. As we picked back up to speed, I stuck it and my phone into a safe compartment. We whizzed past the slowly-flapping egrets and smacked into unsuspecting dragonflies, as Bro. Williams told me over the wind that he was going to try to show me some alligators. It was difficult to make out what he was saying because he talked straight into the wind, only tilting his head slightly to the right, if at all. I soon realized he did that to avoid loosing his baseball cap, which he did only once, toward the end of the adventure, when he had the misfortune of chuckling at a joke.
     Within the first few minutes, we spotted our first alligator. Bro. Williams stopped the engines and dropped the electric motor over the side, and we got within twenty feet of it before it frothed the water with a flick of its tail and disappeared under the placid surface.
Unfortunately, the glare on the water was such that I couldn't get any high-quality pictures, but we did see at least ten alligators, some upwards of twelve feet long, and got within touching distance of several smaller ones.

Pectinatella magnifica, magnificent bryozoan

     After pausing for a few minutes to fish (unfruitfully) at the mouth of the Pearl, we decided to explore a small, flooded cypress cove. I found several cool insects and spiders, including a juvenile Dolomedes triton (six spotted fishing spider) and a still-unidentified beetle. I also found some colonies of the invasive Eichhornia crassipes (Water Hyacinth) and some interesting aquatic natives, which I took home and pressed. Then, Bro. Williams noticed a weird blob bobbing just under the surface. I grabbed a net and scooped it into the boat, where I took a picture of it. At first I thought the gelatinous mass consisted of salamander eggs, but iNaturalist suggested Pectinatella magnifica. I had no earthly idea what that was, nor did I have good enough internet connection to google it, so I set it back in the water where, to my dismay, it broke into several smaller chunklets.

     Later research revealed iNaturalist was correct: I had found a tiny magnificent bryozoan (they can reach over two feet in diameter). Bryozoans are colonies of filter-feeding organisms that basically just float around and clear the water of algae and mud--God knows the Rez needs it.

     Aside from learning about bryozoans and how to navigate through cypress swamps, I discovered an excellent strategy for getting close to deer. As we snaked our way up the Pearl, we noticed a deer moving across the river. 

Oh deer!

      Mr. Gator didn't seem to mind us, and we got within ten feet of him before he ducked under the surface to take his dinner elsewhere. I've never gone deer hunting, so that's probably the closest to a white tailed deer I've ever gotten, unless you count deer sausage.
     On the way back to the dock, we saw a couple more gators, as well as some herons, egrets, and even some ospreys. With bugs in my pockets and plants in my hand, I thanked Bro. Williams for the wonderful trip and went home to press the plants in my high-tech plant press. It was my first time pressing aquatic plants, and I ended up ruining my biology textbook. But it still works as a plant press!

University

     From an ecological perspective, most of Mississippi State's campus is pretty bleak. Even though we have 10,000+ trees on our 1,500 acres, many of them are Chinese Parasol Trees, Bradford Pears, and Crepe Myrtles. That's tantamount to a food company tossing in a handful of deathcaps with their portabella mushrooms. On the main academic campus, concrete and lawn dominate the view, with a peppering of majestic live oaks, some of which are cloaked by invasive English Ivy. All of them, however, are successfully creating a shaded desert of bare earth where even plastic grass would die. On the plus side, a few raised beds are brightened with invasive, poisonous Lantana during the summer and early fall. But then they're stripped and allowed to lie fallow for a couple of weeks before a few pansies are patched in like band-aids on leprosy sores. 

     On the way to the dinning hall, Nandina shows its cheerful berry bunches through the suckering stems of non-native magnolias, beckoning in the Christmas season with certain death (via internal hemorrhaging) for any hungry migrating birds. The landscapers are trying to get rid of it, I'll give them that--I saw an excavator leveling several patches over a week-long period. But because it's Nandina, it came back within three weeks. 

      There is, however, a beacon of hope. The immediate vicinity of the Agriculture buildings is actually well thought out and stunning for most of the year, even if it isn't all native. A massive colony of Passiflora incarnata "incense" creates habitat for hundreds of Gulf Fritillary butterflies, which ineffectively defend their territory against passers-by by whirling around their heads. It's quite a majestic experience, especially when coupled with Passiflora flowers, which are about as large as an adult male's fist.

Gulf Fritillary feeding on invasive Lantana.

Flower of Passiflora incarnata "incense."

     I would be remiss if I did not also mention the effective, mostly native landscaping around the Landscape Architecture buildings--I just don't happen to have any pictures of the aesthetically designed water retention basin that replicates natural habitat to improve both human life and environmental conditions.

Insects: Pests and Pets

     Quite possibly, the highlight of my first semester at college was my Insects: Pests and Pets class taught by Dr. John Guyton. In addition to being able to handle cool arthropods such as "The Ambassador" (a golden-knee tarantula) and even an Amblypygid, we got a weekly PowerPoint presentation full of beautiful pictures and weird insects facts. (For instance, did you know that Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence in gall-wasp ink? I didn't) 

Tailless whip scorpion, or Amblypygid.
Incredibly fast and difficult to catch when it escapes. Not if.

      Besides having an awesome teacher who gave us "entomophagist treats" (e.i. peanut brittle with crickets) and recounted his experiences with insects around the world, the class was fun because of the location. It was in the same building as the Mississippi Entomological Museum, which is probably the coolest thing to do in Starkville, even though literally no one knows it exists. (I do not mean "literally" figuratively. On my campus tour of Mississippi State, our adviser sent me to the wrong building, and then the people there sent me to another wrong building, etc.) It also has a well-thought out, if overgrown, native plant garden where I got to practice my macro photography skills. Bees and butterflies are hard to photograph with a lens that comes into focus at 1 inch away from its subject, so I ended up taking mainly flower pictures (although I did get some good pictures of a Green Lynx spider, Peucetia viridans). For more macro pictures, check out my Instagram (I'm "p._almoni"). I update that much more than my blog.

Clockwise from top left: Solidago sp., Conoclinium coelestinum, 

Peucetia viridans, and Veronia sp. (?)

   I also got an extraordinary opportunity through the class to hear Dr. Jeff Harris talk about beekeeping. He's one of the leading experts on bee breeding (of particular note, he works with making lines of honey bees that are resistant to Varroa mites, which cause Colony Collapse Disorder). It was exiting (and delicious) to be able to eat honey straight out of a beehive!

      Time would fail me to tell of my endeavors at insect art, my visit to Noxubee Wildlife Refuge, and my new website I made to help friends and family members plant low-maintenance native gardens. But I just used a praeteritio, tricolon crescendo, and lampshading in the same two-sentence paragraph, so I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Until next year,
Nate Venarske

The Weirdest in Mississippi

      We have so many weird and wacky insects in Mississippi that few people seem to know about! So I'll highlight a few of them in this post.

      In ascending order, here are the top eight weirdest insects in Mississippi. (In my opinion, at least; feel free to research some of your own!)

      8. Beautiful Wood-Nymph (Eudryas grata)

  Photo by Robert Aguilar, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Flickr.

     I've observed several friends as they happen upon this weird moth, and they are typically extremely surprised to see what looks like a bird dropping with fuzzy arms. I was fascinated myself the first time someone showed me one. It is also quite interesting that a bug pretending to be a bird dropping could be so eye-catching to humans. If you want to see some around your home, they are native to the eastern half of the United States and develop on ubiquitous Virginia creeper and grape vines, as well as the more attractive buttonbush.

Caterpillar of Eudryas grata. Photo by Christian Butler. Flickr

Buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis. Photo by Anna Hesser. Flickr

     7. Hummingbird Clearwing (Hemaris thysbe)

Hummingbird clearwing feeding from a bee balm plant. Photo by Stan Lupo. Flickr.

     Another beautiful moth, hummingbird clearwings are hard-working, high energy insects that are wonderful for pollination and can provide hours of entertainment in a native flower bed. They can easily outperform their namesake bird in terms of beats per second, reaching up to 80 at peak activity (hummingbirds average 53 bps). To do this, they must maintain an internal temperature of 113^oF, four degrees hotter than the fatal internal temperature for humans (109^oF)--not bad for a cold-blooded creature. (Check it out!) If you want these fascinating gems hovering around your yard, plant honeysuckles, cherries, and plums for their caterpillars to eat and grow phlox and beebalm to coax the adults into hanging around.

     6. Bronze Tiger Beetle (Cicindela repanda)

Photo by Judy Gallagher. Flickr.

Elegant markings grace the maroon iridescence of this world-record-breaking beetle. Members of the tiger beetle family, Cicindelidae, are the fastest insects on earth (According to BBC, at least). But that's not what puts this critter on this list. As adults, they are ferocious hunters, routinely tackling and overpower prey many times their size and specializing in eating venomous ants, like the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta that has killed adults in the US. (Here's a PubMed article about that.) But, in the part of their lives we don't see, they are much more dangerous. A weird, almost mystical combination of an ant lion and a bobbit worm, it employs a devious hunting strategy.

Photo by Katja Shultz. Flickr.

       Devious Hunting Strategy à

Photo by Scott King. Flickr.

Photo by Scott King. Flickr.

     

They lie in wait in small burrows with their armor plated head sealing the entrance. As soon as something wanders by, they lunge out with their massive mandibles. They are able to subdue more powerful and larger prey items with two specially designed hooks on a hump toward the end of their abdomen. These give them the leverage to pull the prey underground--where they have the home advantage.

     5. Colobopsis mississippiensis 

Photo by SShattuck. AntWeb.org.

     This weird ant is part of an incredibly weird genus that includes the famous Colobopsis explodans, whose name is rather self-explanatory. Although voluntary evisceration has yet to be observed in this small and relatively uncommon species, they do possess a rather unique form of self-defense: their oddly shaped heads fit lock-and-key into the entrances to their nests. Only found in live twigs of white ash (Fraxinus americana,) it is the most abundant of the genus in Mississippi--hence the specific epithet "mississippiensis."

A major blocks the entrance with her head. Photo by Ross Hutchins. Mississippi State University.

An illustration of the defense mechanism by Ross Hutchins. Mississippi State University.

     4. Broad-headed Sharpshooter (Oncometopia orbona)

Above and below photos by Thomas Shahan. Flickr.

Orange marbling contrasted with awesome azures and rosy pinks makes this little leafhopper pop out in its verdant backdrop. Contrary to the implication of their common name, sharpshooters pose no threat to anything but plants. They gained their name through their messy eating habits and ridiculously quick digestion. As they stick their feeding rostrum into the stem or leaf of a plant, they reroute the xylem and phloem of the plant into their bodies. Once inside, it is run through essentially a sieve and comes out the other end the same rate as it is ingested. The beautiful bug will sit still, posing for the perfect shot, and then launch a stream of clear, sappy excrement at high velocity from its hindquarters. The shots themselves are harmless, if a little alarming the first time they are encountered. The sharpshooter relies on spring-loaded legs and good vision to evade predators, but will often simply dart sideways around the stem and put itself out of sight. They are quite entertaining to watch. Check out this cool video of a sharpshooter nymph "sharpshooting." 

     3. Southern Two-Striped Walkingstick (Anisomorpha buprestoides)

Photo by Donald Hobren. Flickr.

     Another creature that spews liquid, the Southern two-striped walkingstick is significantly more dangerous than the broad-headed sharpshooter. They are often called Devil-riders, both because of the creepy habit of the male to stick around on the female's back for days and because of their startling mechanism of self defense. They possess two glands in their thorax that produce a milky substance and can shoot said substance with considerable accuracy for a considerable distance (Read this first hand account of an unfortunate encounter with an aggressive specimen here.)

An up-close of the glands. Photo by Michael Thomas. University of Florida.

     Here is what Michael Thomas from the University of Florida has found through experimentation (quoting T. Eisner):

"Anisomorpha discharges instantly in response to mild traumatic stimulation as, for example, when individual legs are pinched with forceps, or when the body is tapped or persistently prodded . . . Marksmanship is precise: the spray invariably drenches the particular instrument used for stimulation." In another experiment, Eisner found that the walkingsticks displayed a fair amount of intelligence in deploying their attack. As they can only hold enough for five blasts, they use their toxin sparingly, only when touched, unless they see a bird, in which case they will make a preemptive strike up to almost half a meter. The spray is usually enough to deter predators. (For more information, check this out.)

     2. Green Mantidfly (Zeugmomantispa minuta)

Photo by Katja Shulz. Flickr.

      The chimera of the insect world, this delicate predator boasts the head and arms of a praying mantis and the abdomen and wings of a lacewing. As adults, they are frightening enough, striking with lightning speed with spiny, raptorial forearms. (Mantidfly vs Real Fly: Who Wins?) As with the bronze tiger beetle, though, the weirdness only truly begins when you take a look at their young. Many mantidflies are spider parasites, with this particularly pretty species attacking the egg cases of cobweb spiders (Funnily enough, they leave black widows alone). Other mantidflies parasitize jumping spiders, some even latching on to pregnant spiders like ticks, draining their hemolymph, and finishing their development by consuming the egg sac the dying spider makes. If you can find a picture of a mantidfly nymph, I'd love to see it! I haven't been able to find any on the internet.

     1. Conura amoena

Photo by USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab. Flickr.

     By far the weirdest insect on this list, the small Chalcid wasp is harder to find on the internet than it is in the wild, where it seems to be relatively common. The above photo was the only clear image that was not copyrighted in Flickr and Google, and didn't even come up in Flickr's search engine. I had to go to a Wikipedia page in another language and navigate the links to the original source (which I did so with surprisingly little difficulty, judging by my inability to navigate most cites written in English). Chalcid wasps are interesting because of their enlarged femurs, sword-like tibiae, and tiny abdomens. Their back legs almost give them the appearance of being a backward mantidfly. And its behavior seems to confirm that. Like mantidflies and many wasps, Chalcids are parasites, laying their eggs in the bodies of other organisms. Certain Chalcid females, and perhaps this one (its behavior is not well documented), actually coax antlions into attacking them. When the antlion, which is larger and has massive, venomous jaws, grabs the female wasp, she forces its jaws open with her muscular legs and deposits her eggs directly into the antlion's mouth. They soon hatch and eat the antlion from the inside out. Talk about weird!

     All of these creatures can be found in Mississippi, and many--especially the visually pleasing ones--will come right to your doorstep if you encourage them. 

Catch ya later!

Native Gardening Project

     For those of you who are entomophobes and arachnophobes, this will actually be a fun post for you. No, really! It's all about plants.

     I've had a couple of people ask about native landscaping, and I've agreed to do research on a possible project: a woodland shade garden.

     The proposed site is currently full of pines and American sweetgum, with a few scattered Chinese tallows, winged elms, redbuds, and American beautyberry. The site is best described as part shade with variable moisture, which is nice because it should allow for a variety of different plants.
     I found a very informative blog post by Carolyn of Carolyn's Shade Gardens (https://carolynsshadegardens.com/2012/04/02/your-native-woodland-if-you-build-it-they-will-come/). I will provide a few important quotations I extracted (for more information, read her wonderful post), then I will make my own list of grasses, ferns, flowers, and shrubs that should thrive in that area.
     "It is really quite simple.  All you do is take one woodland area, mix with generous amounts of compost, add the appropriate native plants, and wait a few years.  The key is knowing which plants to use....

     "I started with the worst possible soil in the worst possible conditions.  Not only were the beds composed of the hard baked clay and rocks prevalent in our area, but they were filled with roots from 100-year-old London plane and—hold onto your hats—black walnut trees.  Add to that, years of trash, including roofing slate and coal furnace shovelings, dumped in the woods before municipal collection came along and construction debris from the 1960s....

     "Nature does not dot the landscape with precious collectibles but  “designs” with large sweeps of single types of plants, and that is what I have done in my woods  To create a woodland like mine, all you do is plant at least five but preferably seven and ideally nine [species] amended with generous amounts of compost, mulch heavily with ground leaves, and stand back and wait."

     To see what she has done in her woods, I have copied and pasted one of her pictures. Please view her blog post to see the other beautiful pictures she included.
                           

     Here is a list of good plants to use, from my own research inspired by Carolyn's list. They are all deer resistant, can stand a variety of light conditions, and grow best in medium/moist/wet soils.

1. Blue Wood Sedge (Carex flaccosperma).

            Moisture loving yet drought tolerant, this 6-10" tall evergreen sedge boasts a beautiful blue hue in shade, forming large, decorative clumps.  (Source: Missouri Botanical Garden). It already occurs naturally in the area, so it obviously would perform well.

North Creek Nurseries, https://www.northcreeknurseries.com/plantName/Carex-flaccosperma-.

               

Image mine.

     2. Inland Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium).

             Like the blue wood sedge, the leaves of inland sea oats possess a bluish tint. Unlike blue wood sedge, it is known for lovely, ivory seedheads that are often used in flower arrangements. It also forms large clumps (2-4') of bamboo-like foliage which turn to yellow-gold in fall. It is "very popular as a low-maintenance shade grass," and should require no care after planting (it can be transplanted or grown from seeds). It has the potential to expand aggressively in the right conditions--but would be an unlikely lawn weed. (Source: Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.)

    

Sally and Andy Wasowski, https://www.wildflower.org/gallery/result.php?id_image=21916.

  

Smaller specimens I (gasp) wild dug. Image mine.

     3. Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis) 
             A fern that enjoys full or partial sun in wet soil, this deer resistant fern is a great all around plant. It is a great groundcover for open woodlands like the suggested area, spreading via rhizomes. (Source: Prairie Nursery.)

     
     4. Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense).
     A great native for the swathing designs Carolyn espouses, six inch wide leaves and a dense root network allow Wild Ginger to form a solid groundcover in three-ish years when planted one foot apart. It can thrive in many different types of soil, but you have to get close to said soil in order to see its pretty, dark red flower, which originates at the base of the plant. (Source: Prairie Nursery.)


                                    

Above images from Prairie Nursery. https://www.prairienursery.com/store/groundcover-plants/wild-ginger-asarum-canadense#.XQuY5VVKjX4.

             

     5. Golden Groundsel (Senecio aureus). This is one of Carolyn's favorite woodland plants. A hardy, adaptable plant that can endure anything from full sun to full shade, evergreen leaves, purple March buds, and dazzling flowers that last from April and May.  (Source: Carolyn's shade garden.)

Image from Prairie Nursery.

     Prairie Nursery also sings its praise: "A glowing patch of Golden Groundsel is a cheerful presence in the early summer landscape. This easy-to-grow perennial is valued for its long and profuse bloom and ability to naturalize rapidly. The basal foliage is showy as well, with dense rosettes of heart shaped leaves with purple undersides. The central stalk is mostly bare, and lends a strong vertical line to massed plants."

     6. Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica).
     Virginia Bluebells are missing one critical criterion for this list: they are not deer resistant. However, their beauty more than makes up for that unfortunate characteristic, and they are rabbit and black walnut resistant.
     "Pendulous, trumpet-shaped [1-inch] blue flowers" top a 1-2' mass of blue-green leaves. Before they bloom in early spring, pink buds dot the ovulate leaves. However, like many native spring bloomers, Virginia Bluebells go dormant in summer--hey, at least it protects them from deer damage! (Source: Prairie Nursery.)

Above Image from Prairie Nursery.

     7. And finally, Jacob's ladder!
      Endowed with fern-like summer-green leaves, Jacob's ladder has some advantages to Virginia Bluebells. It is mildly deer resistant and has similar flowers (although they bloom for a slightly shorter period of time). (Source: Prairie Nursery.)

Image from Prairie Nursery

Image from Prairie Nursery

     Additionally, oakleaf hydrangeas, asters, goldenrods, ephemerals, and shootingstars could be added for more year-round color.

    Another great idea would be planting Quercus spp. (oaks) and Prunus spp. (plums, cherries, and peaches are common examples), as these provide food for most common birds in the southeast. For instance, a single family of chickadees requires 6000-9000 caterpillars to successfully raise their young in the spring (they don't feed them any nuts or berries). As most birds are larger than chickadees, they require more food--and they typically need at least twenty different species of caterpillar within a fifty-yard range in order for a population to survive more than a few years. So it is important to plant trees like oaks (which are hosts to more than 500 different species) and Prunus spp. (hosts to around 200 species). (Source: Doug Tallamy, "Hope for the Wild 2019."  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om4gKdODCwg.)

      I hope this was informative! I encourage everyone to begin preserving nature through beautiful, ecosystem-minded landscaping. 

A Rare Find, Giant Pet, and Macro Photography and Videography (on YouTube!)

Hello!

Since my last post, I've been pretty busy! And I still am, so I'll try to make this brief (as brief as I can with almost forty pictures) and interesting.

THE RARE FIND

A couple of days ago, I was looking for a stick to use as a stake for my Passiflora incarnata (purple passionflower). As I scanned the back of our property for a sufficiently large limb, I noticed a particularly twiggy stick--one that was wavy and had tons of small branches, well, branching off of it. I decided to leave it be, as it would be a waste of time to break the twigs from the main stem. I kept looking, but was unsuccessful, so I returned to the original stick and picked it up. A flurry of hair-thin legs caught my eye, and I held up the tip of the stick for closer inspection. My immediate impression was that it was one of the ubiquitous Tetragnathids that adorn every branch with their webs here in Mississippi, but as I held it up to the sun in the cool, but humid morning air, an idiosyncratic trait glared down at me: two immense, globular eyes. I gasped, lowered the stick, and (literally) screamed "no way!" over and over again for a solid thirty seconds. I whipped out one of my handy vials and blew the little critter in. 

I still was not 100% positive of my identification, so I snapped a few pictures with my macro lens and sent them to a mentor of mine who also happens to be a spider specialist--and, coincidentally, the first person to discover this spider in the state. Within minutes, he replied, confirming my identification. It was a juvenile Deinopis spinosa. 

The best picture I could get of the little fella.

It has a body length of half a centimeter and likes to camp out in places that are difficult to photograph, so that's the best picture I've got--for now. Hopefully, I'll have better ones when it reaches full size. 

The Giant Pet

Another cool find was this Dolomedes vittatus I stumbled upon at my nana's place. I was attempting to cross a great gully I encountered on my plant-digging expedition, and first hurled my shovel to the far bank, so as to cross more gracefully. I took a deep breath, adjusted my glasses, and threw all the power of my coiled legs into the ground. As I leaped sublimely through the forest air, I felt a slight tugging sensation on my right foot. OK, perhaps "slight" is an understatement. My graceful, parabolic arc quickly began to look like the third quadrant of a circle: some conniving poison ivy had snaked its way around my ankle. 

I face-planted into a small plateau of moss, mud, and... more poison ivy, almost landing on the shovel I had tossed ahead of me for safety. My glasses, which had been firmly fastened with an eyewear container, flew a short distance--into the mud. I stood up, readjusted my glasses, muttered "confound it" (as profane as I'll get), and adjusted my glasses again. My leg hurt. I had probably sprained or even broken it on that long fall. I decided to test it. I could move it just fine. "Confound it." 

It still hurt a little bit, enough to justify my being angry. So, in a fit of manly rage, I seized my shovel and plunged it into the soft, steeply inclined bank a few feet away. I was about to hurl myself up the embankment to collect one more blasted plant when I noticed a blur of motion.

The shovel featured in the upper right hand corner.

I had been about an inch away from bisecting the biggest Dolomedes spider I had ever seen. 

Ignoring the searing pain in my left leg, I calmly pulled out a vial and, with hands that never trembled, scooped it up in one fell swoop. Actually, my leg was feeling just fine by then, and I could hardly hold the vial from the adrenaline rush, and it took me about five minutes to capture it... but I got 'er done. The spider, which I originally deemed to be a D. tenebrosus, was pretty fast--I had to catch it in one of the larger buckets I had brought.

I brought her home and proudly presented her to the world via Instagram.

.  

After a few weeks of fun, she died of an undiagnosed disease. She had began to act strangely, walking around at the bottom of her enclosure instead of skimming the surface. She had plenty of food, clean water, a good habitat for molting, and plenty of hydration (obviously). It was a very tragic experience.

She is, however, alive and well somewhere. No, it's not spider heaven and it's more than my heart. Check it out.

MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY

My new channel on YouTube is Nate V. So, if you want to see the Dolomedes vitattus (whom I sadly never named), check out videos of her munching on leaf footed bugs and battling vicious beetles. And don't be the second twerp who reports me for "graphic content." They're bugs. They're fine. They don't feel pain. 1

Please click this link, like, and subscribe (even if you don't watch the videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmAypqtpc85E6Su1kIN6DCQ?view_as=subscriber

I created the channel primarily because blogger no longer supports videos. So, if you want the content of this post as advertised (the Macro Videography part), check it out.

Next, because it is getting late, I'm just going to post all my good macro pics with little commentary other than if it was digitally enhanced (--not faked... that's totally different).

Alypia octopunctata. Edited.

Anisota virginiensis. Color saturation slightly increased

Sinea sp. Juvenile assassin bug.

Leucauge venusta. Orchard Orb Weaver. Edited.

Alypia octopunctata. Edited.

Juvenile mantid.

Juvenile stink bug.

Anolis carolinensis.

Hymenopteran pupal exoskeleton with ants emerging. Not sure if they ate it or if they're just checking out an empty shell.

Odonatan. (I'm bad at identifying dragonflies.) 

Euphorbia corollata L. Flowering Spurge.

Chrysomelid. Leaf Beetle. These fellas are tough to id. 

Physostegia virginiana L. Obedient plant.

Sisyrinchium rosulatum. Annual blue eyed grass.

Halysidota sp. All these tussock moths look the same to me.

Prosapia bicincta. Two lined spittle bug.

Chauliognathus sp. I think. Soldier beetle.

Leucauge venusta. edited.

Callistethus marginatus. Margined Shinning Leaf Chafer.

Physostegia virginiana L. Obedient plant. Edited.

Physostegia virginiana L. Obedient plant. Definitely not edited.

Hemerocallis sp. Daylily. Edited.

Hydrangea quercifolia. Oakleaf hydrangea. Edited.

Hydrangea quercifolia. Oakleaf hydrangea. Edited.

Halysidota sp. Tussock moth. Edited.

Pterophylla camellifolia. Common true katydid. Edited.

Hydrangea sp. You should be able to guess the common name. Edited.

Hydrangea sp.  Edited.

Linnaea x grandiflora. Glossy abelia. Edited.

Cerambycid. Longicorn beetle. Striving for the light. 

Oncopeltus fasciatus. Milkweed Bug.

Thanks for reading!

References

1 Most insects don't possess nociceptors, and therefore cannot feel pain in the same way that we do. (The only real exception is fruit flies, but who cares about them, anyway?) You have google as your reference. A lot of people will say that the presence of nociceptors is not a good indicator of a creature's ability to feel pain, but there's no empirical evidence to believe that they do.