Insect Picture of the Day

Click for larger version

Happy Spider Friday, everyone! Andrew Lin sends us this picture of a tiny, unidentified spider crawling on a bit of ginger in his kitchen. If you look at the larger resolution you can get a feel for the scale of this spider–it’s probably only a few millimeters long. The white bits are ginger shoots sprouting up from the root.

I don’t have an ID for this spider, but I would be unsurprised if it were either an orb weaver or a grass spider. Probably an orb weaver; grass spiders are “running crab spiders” and though this spider has the sleek body, the legs have that mechanical “gantry” look that says “I am all about hanging upside down all day waiting for prey to come to me, not running around like some savage.” (Little known fact: orb weavers are the aristocratic snobs of spiderkind.)

Come to think of it, Andrew also sent in another picture of this spider, of it dropping from the ceiling onto the ginger… and I don’t think crab spiders use their silk to rappel, so that would further confirm the identification. (As if the sneer weren’t enough.)

Oh! I almost forgot! I strongly suspect that this spider was the inspiration for this webcomic strip, also drawn by Andrew.