Our house must support most of the world's population of Pholcus phalangioides , the daddy long-legs spider or long-bodied cellar spider (not to be confused with the crane fly that are also known as daddy long-legs). These spiders have a total of e
Trapdoor spider - Isle of Youth, Cuba. My arachnologist friend, Elier Fonseca, found this trapdoor spider by painstakingly searching the leaf litter on the forest floor using his fingertips to locate the door of the burrow. A species new to science.
Red velvet mites belong to the Trombidiidae family. The adults have four pairs of legs, but they use the front two legs to monitor their surroundings. They also have a tiny pair of eyes. The adults are predators but they are harmless to humans.
Nobody likes ticks, especially as they carry nasty pathogens that cause Lyme's disease, tick paralysis and tick borne encephalitis. Nevertheless, they are remarkable animals, perfectly adapted to feed on the blood of various animals by means of ser
Ticks hang around in the long grass waiting to climb aboard when you (or your dog) walk past. For such a small animal they cause a lot of inflammation. I think this one is a juvenile species of Ixodes .
Here's a portrait of Linyphia triangularis - one of several species that make horizontal platform webs with cris-cross barrage stands of silk arranged over the platform. When prey hits the tangle of lines, they drop onto the platform below and the
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