A seven-legged mother carries her young spiderlings. It's when I watch these mothers that the prospect of having another child doesn't seem quite as daunting. 

I wonder how many mothers get up in the morning, make coffee, catch flies for the spiders, slugs for the garter snakes, shoot the cats (they receive insulin twice a day), feed the kids and then get them ready for school. It's been a really busy week.

I've been dying to photoblog but everything else has come up. We had our first visit from the social worker for our adoption dossier and started in earnest gathering our paperwork. It's an amazingly complicated process. It was also the boys' first week of school. That's a complicated process too -- but at least it settles down after a week!

This first weekend of the school year saw all the kids on the block (about 12) gathering for tea parties, snake petting groups, toy exchanges and scooter races. It was pretty chaotic, but relatively friendly. Tyler, a second grader who lives two houses down, came slug hunting with me in the afternoon and we found a ton of bugs, this little hairstreak among them. Since it was overcast and windy, she was content to stay put while I ran and got my camera and I came back to take a dozen pictures. I belive she is a Gray Hairstreak. 

Another picture, this time concentrating on the reason for their namesake the "Death's Head" spider. 

Nephila clavipes is a big spider. This one wasn't though, probably about half the adult size. Their webs can be 2 meters in diameter in their native habitat, southeastern USA. They're also the lab rats of many a scientific spider silk study, which explains how I got a picture.

I went up to Laramie, Wyoming the University of Wyoming's Molecular Biology Lab. This is the place where they have sequenced tons of spider silk genes. I met with Shane Nelson a graduate student there in the hopes that we could work together for some project -- perhaps investigating the structure of the silk molecules. 

This violet-colored clematis has such neat detail close up. I thought the color if not the species qualified as "Violet." I generally try to use a photo that was made within a day or so, but this one is from the end of June -- it just immediately came to mind when I saw the theme. 

Ambush Bug Feeding

I've been checking on this little ambush bug for a few weeks now and was finally assured it was getting enough to eat. Here it's doubling its abdomen size with hoverfly prey. 

Damselfly Nymph

This is a damselfly larva. You can tell from the shape of it's head (and the fact that it's in the water) that it's a member of Odonata. The three feathery gills coming out like tails from the abdomen tell you it's a damsel rather than a dragon. I was amazed to find out just how long the nymph stage lasts -- it can be years! More fun trivia about this family can be found here. 

I was originally looking at aesthetic leaf damage when I saw this geometridae caterpillar. It doesn't look like the linen looper so from this paper (see page 19), process of elimination points to this possibly being Lambdina punctata. 

At Roxborough State Park, these assassins were out in force. I really wish they targetted biting flies. 

Brown Mantid

This little brown mantid was in the grass. At first I thought it was a stick insect, but then it was moving way too fast. I didn't expect to see brown mantid since all the ones I've seen so far have been green -- with the exception of the color of the hatchlings. This brown was almost identical in size to the green pictured two posts earlier. 

Good Luck, Bad Luck

A bit of my life, reinterpreted as a Taoist proverb:

I find out about a photography contest, low stress and amateurs only. Good luck! I find it's restricted to photos of butterflies, which I haven't had that much success photographing. Bad Luck. I give myself a day in the butterfly conservatory and come out with some okay shots for a first try, learn a lot -- another practice session and I'll have a photo worth submitting. Good Luck! The conservatory is closed for 5 weeks due to wind damage. Bad luck. I panic and start seeking wild butterflies. I actually start to catch some on film; a few more tries and maybe I'll get some on film that are recognizable as butterflies. Good Luck. My yard is being taking over by an invasive, aggressive bush a neighbor planted in her yard. Bad luck. It turns out the invasive weed is a Chinese lilac that attracts butterflies like catnip attracts cats. Good Luck.

As Jon J Muth paraphrased in Zen Shorts, "You never can tell."

The contest and the 'bad luck' of the wind damage, really taught me tons about butterflies and moths. Shooting in the conservatory now feels like using training wheels in terms of technique and identification. In the wilds of our state parks and my backyard, I realized just how many butterflies and moths there are around here. I never noticed and I don't know how I ever missed them. The USGS has a fabulous site for identifying and learning about the local North American fauna -- which I never would have used had it not been for my goal of taking a good butterfly picture. I guess that's why I like PhotoFriday, Macroday, and other themed contests. I learn a lot.

With all this talk about butterflies, don't think I've gone soft. Arachnids are still the coolest; mantids a close second.

Sannakji, here's another of your favorites. I found this young mantid in our grass, probably one of the survivors from our spring hatching. It had lovely red and pink markings and no show of wing development yet. This one was far more skittish than the one I found last week, but then it was also not even as long as my pinkie finger. 

I believe this is a Banded Hairstreak (Satyrium calanus) which uses oak as the larval host plant and consumes milkweek nectar as an adult. This adult is on scrub oak at Roxborough State Park. 

This little crab spider had interesting markings. It's on the petal of a cosmos petal. It's similar to the little male I posted a few weeks ago. This one is about the same size and appears to be female.

On a totally different subject, is anyone else just dying to see V for Vendetta? It seemed very timely when I read it in college in the late 80's, now it's just frighteningly accurate. Just substitute airplane attacks for nukes and our response has been about the same. Shudder shudder. 

A Bit of Writing

The biggest news around here is that we've started the process to adopt a baby girl from China. We've filled out the first application and looking forward to our first orientation meeting August 13th. The process generally takes about a year, so while exciting, we've still got a long way to go before she can come home.

One more week of summer vacation for my boys and two more for me. I'm hoping to get up to Laramie, Wyoming during the week of the 15th to visit the labs where they study the properties of spider silk. Dr. Randy Lewis, a molecular biologist, heads the group sequencing the DNA and working on ways to spin spider silk for commercial uses.

The end of school is in sight even though these last two classes are reputed to be very tough. This also means I'm starting the job search, but I'm having difficulty finding companies wanting to hire a mathematician interested in biomimetic applications. Some companies list my skills but then say they want an engineer or biologist and I need to convince them a mathematician can fit the bill.

On the 20th of August, we hear the results of the photo competition for the Butterfly Pavilion. The other competition that I entered, the Eldorado State Park Photo Competition, is open for public voting and results will be released September 30th. These are my first entries into any photo contest. I'm a little nervous.

Another bit of news, a story I wrote about ten years ago (it sure doesn't seem that long ago) was selected for a "Best of" anthology. "One in the A.M." will be printed in the Best of Borderlands. Check it out at Borderlands Press in the "Coming Soon" area and order many copies! The synopsis of the anthology at the web site:

Best of Borderlands (Volumes 1 - 5)

Elizabeth Monteleone has selected the most memorable and 
representative fiction form the first five volumes of the 
greatest award-winning anthology series of all time. 
Available in an affordable trade paperback edition that 
will be a must-have for all readers of ground-breaking 
fiction in the genres of horror, dark fantasy, and suspense.

The beginning of September, I'll be setting up a Pro Gallery in Shutterfly to sell prints. I'll keep everyone posted as this develops.

I'm not sure the species of this moth, but it was similar in size and hairiness of a plume moth. 

This is one of the little moths that take flight when one walks through the grass. 

I'm not sure what the species of this little butterfly is, but it was out during a dark rainy day at the Pavillion. I liked the blue tips on the ends of the antennae. 

Web Detail

This is a detail of a web of a funnel spider web. The web seems to be an ongoing project of these large spiders. The webs acquire over time small bits of vegetation, dust, insect corpses and so forth. Holes are repaired with the spider's ample spinnerettes instead of remaking the whole web like many orb weavers do. The repair work more resembles quick spackling rather than carefully weaving.

This seemed like a good entry for the PhotoFriday theme "Complexity". If one looks carefully, all sorts of beautiful designs can be found, many with a fractal nature. 

I had just started to seek out butterflies, moths and skippers and this little fellow showed up in the backyard. 

I think this is a skipper, not sure the species, on a Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa).

This is one of the many I had listed as a semifinalist in my personal competition for two entries into the Butterfly Pavillion's photographic contest. I submitted two photos yesterday and will be posting my semifinalists in the next few days. 

Rice Paper Butterfly

Rice Paper Butterfly(Idea leuconoe) at the Butterfly Pavillion. It was an overcast, rainy day and the butterlies were lethargic and, if you could find them, easily photographed. 

Kai, my soon-to-be six year-old, brings me flowers that he's sure I can see while I'm looking through the macro lens. 

The mantis grabbed a snack during the photo shoot. Maybe it was part of a taste test (see previous post). 

A very friendly preying mantis, posed for me for quite a while. During the interview section of my coverage, I asked which taste better, green or bluebottle flies. This question required a bit of thought. 

Mayfly on a blade of grass in our backyard. 

Adult mayflies don't eat and hence, don't need the hardware to do so. Their latin name is Ephemeroptera which is to say, "short-lived and winged".