Green Spider
Every so often I screw up¹. Julia Faelt sent this photo to me months ago. It was awesome, I wrote it up and published it and then forgot about it. Last week Julia wrote again, giving me further identification on the picture and telling me that if I really wanted to use the picture on the website, it would be okay. Well, wouldn’t she be surprised to see that I had already published it? I laughed and opened up InsectPOD and began crawling the archives. And this brings us back to the part where every so often I screw up.
This amazing spider photo comes to us from Finland. And since I screwed up, we actually have some ID, thanks to Julia’s frustration. I would have gone with Lycosidae, one of the wolf spiders, due to the shape of the carapace and the general size of the beastie. Julia’s first guess was Thomisidae, one of the crab spiders. An actual spider expert from the University of Turku gives us the answer however: Philodromidae, the grass spiders. “The eye pattern,” she says, “is unmistakeable.”
What is also unmistakeable is the shocking green coloration on this spider. What kind of camouflage is that? Did this spider evolve in a green paint factory?
The color and composition of this photo is just wonderful. For those who want to see some of the amazing Finnish (sp?) flora, here is a 1920×1440 wallpaper that is cropped wider.
Julia: My apologies for screwing up. And THANK YOU for an amazing photo!
¹ Yes, yes, technically this sentence is also true when begun with “very often”².
² Shut up. You’re mean.
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
Scott said,
February 29, 2008 @ 10:13 am
New wallpaper!!
peggysue1971 said,
February 29, 2008 @ 11:16 am
Yes! Definitely new wallpaper. (but where does the old wallpaper go?) Finland…it just blows me away…what a small world it is now. Is it possible in bug conciousness that this creature knows he/she is hanging out on someone’s screen Utah, USA? Thank you Julia! (and Dave)
Kazriko said,
February 29, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
It kind of looks like the flowers off to the right of it… only bigger.
JFargo said,
February 29, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
That is a freakin’ cool spider picture!
tceisele said,
February 29, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
That’s a very lovely spider picture. Those plants that it is standing next to: is that *moss*? If that’s the kind of moss that we have growing on rocks around here (and it sure looks like it), that would make this spider maybe 5 mm long or so.
Brian L. said,
February 29, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
Wow. This is an amazing picture! Thank you Julia!
What kind of camera was this taken with? I’m impressed with the great quality.
Julia F said,
March 1, 2008 @ 1:36 am
Nice you liked my picture!
Yes, it is just common moss around it (some kind of Polytrichium). As for the camera… heh, just a very ordinary Nikon Coolpix 4600. Took plenty of luck to get such a picture with it…
*goes browsing for other pictures from last summer, encouraged by your very positive response*
AJ said,
March 1, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Definitely the most beautiful spider I’ve ever seen, and a lovely photo. I’ve got it set as my desktop. I’ll just have to remember to change it before the next time my seriously arachnophobic friend comes over to use my printer