Sleep tight.
Why limit it to the US? Dolomedes is international.
Also yes I will sleep tight, knowing these adorable and accomplished spiders are out there living their best lives.
…and with closed mouth
That’s gotta be in Australia…
Nope, southern US. Found in a local group.
Great find! There are various members of Dolomedes in other countries. Some specialise in rivers, other lakes.
I’m going pretend this is AI and move along. With climate change we are affecting their eating habits. Soon they may wise up and decide humans will make a better meal then turtles and fish.
Not us this time… though we do have spiders that catch fish, snakes, lizards and birds
I thought golden orb weavers would occasionally trap birds in their webs. I’ve definitely seen skinks caught in redbacks webs too
Not sure on the snakes and fish tho
In Australia the don’t have so little Spiders
…
Fascinating is not the word I would use to describe that
I know your age range just from the master of disguise reference
Saw that shit in theatres. As well as Baby Geniuses 2 and Meet the Spartans.
You’re my exact age 31. And 32 in a few months
This is basically the plot of IT.
Neither are humans, but there is always a first
Don’t spiders actually sort of rather drink their prey than eating it? We digest food inside us, spiders just vomit up shit onto paralysed prey that liquifies it so the spider can just sort of slurp it up.
So I wonder how he’ll do with a turtle. It’s easy enough to imagine on a fish, but…
Ofc not, turtles aren’t fish!
It’s a guilty pleasure that I love The Matter of Disguise.
I would love to upvote something so fascinating as a sudden change or extreme rarity in ecology, but unfortunately I cannot in good conscience because doing so also promotes animal gore fetishists that exist in unfortunate numbers on general forums, youtube, etc.
I know about the types of communities you are talking about, but there is a difference between people who purposefully put animals together to cause them to kill each other for entertainment and taking striking pictures of natural predation.
I just watched a video of an Australian water rat eat the heart of a toad, as an adaptation to prey on invasive species with mostly toxic organs. That is pretty cool, and the shock value helps with the educational aspect.
There’s a difference between that and “let’s put a snake and a spider in the same confined environment to watch them kill each other for fun.” Or god, the monkey torture people.
Animals eat each other, and learning about them will require confronting this fact. I think this photo is educational, not lurid. Most people know very little about spiders, and I hope that my posting this picture got people to think more about the natural world. It is shocking, it does provoke a visceral reaction, but it also prompts questions. I am probably going to use it as a phenomenon to explore the next time I work with a student on biology.
where’s the gore
There is a dead little turtle dangling by its neck.
so what do you think gore means
