SUNDEWS - the carnivorous struggle

I was given a small pot of Drosera, also called common sundews, by my sister-in-law a few weeks ago. Sundew plants are carnivorous and so far this plant has trapped a few very tiny insects and made mince meat of them. One interesting fact from Wikipedia: They can achieve a lifespan of 50 years!

At other times, when too many milk ants invaded our kitchen, some of them would be thrown to this plant. But, this afternoon, something else happened.

A small spider, with length of about 2.0 mm from head to end of abdomen, accidentally touched the ever-reaching tentacles of these sundews. Garden spiders have been a good friend of mine as they prey on unwanted insects. Yes, my heart dropped. I spent a while observing how it is going to get itself out of hot soup.

It seems like its leg (1) and leg (2) have been glued into the tentacles. This is the first time that I actually see for myself how strong the sweet, sticky mucilage is. Tried as it did, the spider just could not pull its legs out of the stalked glands.

After a while of struggle, it takes a rest. Then it tries to turn outward and at the same time, pulls its legs. Nope, they are not coming out of the glue of death!

Here is looking at the situation from another angle. The spider has gone in a little bit forward, leading to a more precarious position than before.

Finally, with two legs trapped and the rest of its body outside, it just stopped. I believe it has expended all its energy and in due time it will die of starvation or exhaustion. Depending on what comes next, the sundews might just be able to lift the spider up and bring it deeper in for a fuller hold.

So, what I did was load a pair of tweezers with a small piece of tissue paper and use that to lift the spider up. Then I use another very damp tissue paper to dilute the sticky juice from the legs. Eventually, I put the spider down on a small cactus plant.

Did the spider make it? I think it did as a few minutes after I left it on the cactus plant, it disappeared. I certainly hope it makes it to its home, with all the limbs intact. 

By the way, I don't normally intervene in nature's progress. This one was an exception. Anyway, I was hoping for mosquitoes, fruit flies and the pesky milk ants.

Here is a picture of a fruit fly that met its doom. No way I could have saved this one. Truly a formidable organic "flypaper" trap.

Long Leg Spider - Tiny Sentinel

Just a few minutes earlier, I decided to check on the solitary long leg spider that guards a corner of our hall-kitchen pass-through wall, where we pass utensils from the kitchen to the dinning hall.

I have left the spider alone for the past years, as it is very tiny and fragile - about 1.0 mm body diameter. Since the kitchen is a place where little ants come and go, this spider has been a good pest reducer. Yes, it has been doing a good job.

These are the two shots that I took, from different angle and light output. I did not take more as I did not want to chase the spider away from its home.

As its web is wedged in a tight corner, it is very difficult to get a clear flash-shot, so I have to improvise just a little bit to bring the flash spot on. Everything about the spider is translucent as it is so thin. Yet, we can see that it has a fierce look. It is now hanging on a web, vertically.

This is an interesting shot, with the spider foreground to the black wooden frame (see below picture).  Nevertheless, it is still possible to see its slim legs and brownish abdomen. Considering its size, even the milk ants are much larger than it. So, unless the web gets the ants - this spider might end up as dinner instead.

Here it is - the setup for the above shots. I used an old SLR Sigma AF 20~70mm lens, reversed. It is connected to the Canon EOS 60D by an adapter. In this case, I add a tube in-between them to allow me to get a magnification ratio of 4.96:1.

The usage of the tube makes the subject area very dark, hence the presence of two mini clip-on torchlight. A long DIY flash extender (made of paper, lined with reflective foils within) brings just enough flash output to the subject. If I want more flash power, I increase the Flash-stop or the ISO number.

Cricket Nymphs Having Fun

I breed small cricket nymphs for my fish. This adds to the variety of diets for the small fishes that I keep, in addition to their fish flakes and frozen worms. Some of the nymphs will eventually grow into full grown crickets - where I will use them to lay more eggs for the net batch of nymphs.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs. Their body length is between 2.5mm to 3mm long.

This one is a model nymph. It stays here for as long as I am willing to take shots of it. As they move around frequently, and quickly, opportunity like this is hard to come by.

The one on the left looks like a hippo. Yes, they are cute fellows. When you look at the thickness of the leaf, you will get to understand how small these nymphs are. These are less than a day old. For the record, I juxtaposed two photos together just to get this "circus" feel.

This is another one, exploring the small area where I keep them. This special area is my PhotoBox where I put little insects, eggs and nymphs together for photo shoot. When they first emerged from the egg, they were between whitish and milky. Over time, they will become darker, as seen here.

This one ran into a corner that was full of ultra-fine sand. These sand had been pounded for some purposes. Unfortunately, I did not know that they were so fine until I saw the nymphs being covered totally with them. Eventually, I had to clear the sand for they were simply too fine to be of any benefit to all the micro-insects around.

This spider came by when I was taking some pictures and I let it have one of the nymphs for food. This shot is another juxtaposed situation where I merged two separated shots together. 

 A totally "black" nymph. This is a senior and is about 2 days old.

From each batch of eggs, I would probably get between 900 to 1200 nymphs.