I think this is some species of hairstreak, I was going to say a brown elfin, but my guide doesn't show or mention those irridescent green scales near the body on the underwing.

I think the plant is a Mountain Parsley (Harbouria trachypleura). We found both in the Forgotten Valley in Goldengate State Park (west of Golden, Colorado). Each blossom is about 1/8" (.3 cm) long and so the butterfly is just shy of the 1" (2.5 cm) range. 

Spider with Prey III

6:57pm June 25 2005. This series was posted after a discussion with Kousik about watching and documenting how spiders feed. 

Spider with Prey II

6:51pm June 25 2005 

Spider with Prey I

6:42 pm June 25 2005 

After dinner (note the slightly darker color of the petals) and the spider was still working on it. I don't know how long this spider spends eating prey, but it was longer than I thought.  

Before dinner, I found this very well-camoulflaged crab spider with a newly caught bee. 

Artsy Fartsy

And now for something completely different. Oh wait, it's still an arthropod on a flower. Okay, well here's my first black and white.
I think this is some kind of sphyinx moth. Any ideas? It was white and grey and near indistinguishable from the white flowers it was on. The hind wings weren't distinguishable in my photos. 

I noticed a curled leaf on my rose bush a few days ago. Since it's not very resistant to aphids and I don't use insecticides, I find all sorts of fun things among the leaves and blossoms. I think I was expecting a larva using the leaf for added protection during metamorphosis.
I found this crab spider with an egg sac attached to the dry wall of this leaf cave. The spider guarded the sac in the same posture she uses when preparing to ambush prey.
I'm not sure about the quality of this picture;I'm biased since I was interested in the behavior. 

Damsel Damselfly

The subtle colors make the females hard to photograph. This was taken in Forgotten Valley in Goldengate State Park, west of Golden, Colorado with no fancy equipment except for my Raynox macro lens. 

Green Ambush Bug

I first discovered this little bug last summer. They wait to ambush and prey upon pollinators that visit their flowers. This includes bees that are much larger than the bug.

Late last summer the bugs I found were about twice as large (as the specimen in the picture) and colored yellow and brown. I found them mostly in sunflowers, often sharing their trap with crab spiders.

This one, and all the others I've found this summer so far, are bright green and smaller. They're also on many different kinds of flowers, including this butterfly bush. You can see the beginnings of yellow and brown coloration on this fellow's back -- they weren't there last week.

I had the hardest time taking a picture of this fellow. I had to ignore my light meter and make the shutter speed a few steps faster. If I didn't, the bug was washed out. I also needed to make a light diffuser with a coat hanger and vellum and a reflector made from crumpled aluminum foil wrapped around some flexible plastic. Finally I got something that approximated what my eye saw!

I'm really lucky this fellow likes to be still. 

Hoverfly on Flax

This is my favorite wildflower. I love the color and the simple shape of the petals. It's some kind of flax (Linaceae), probably Blue but Prairie and Common are also reasonable options.

On the flower is a hoverfly (Syrphidae), embracing the stamen of the flax. I felt like a voyeur. 

A small addendum: Look on this hoverfly for its halteres. From the TOL website, "The halteres are small, club-like structures that function as balancing organs during flight." Cool, huh?

Opiliones

A Daddy Longleg (Opiliones) resting on a sunflower. These our are favorite arachnids because I can let my boys handle them and because they remind us of a Johnny Quest episode.

On a recent trip, a passing hiker repeated the common myth that they were dangerous. They're not. 

Tiny Male Crab Spider

This is a male crab spider (Thomisidae). Given his bulbous palps, I assume he's mature. His small size (1/8 in. 3mm) might be due to a natural sexual dimorphism. Or she might be tiny too, I suppose. :) 

He's on the petal of a Bouncing Bet (aka Soapwort; Saponaria officinalis) flower.

Spiderweb II 

Another damselfly in our yard. There was even a dragonfly here, but he left on business. I like the lighting at dawn and dusk. This was taken with the macro feature on my S500 Fujifilm, but not with my additional macro lens. 

Here's another skipper, I think another checkered skipper, but this time I caught her laying eggs. She seemed to be laying one egg per little plant (I still need to look up the name of this one). She was so intent on her task that I was mostly an afterthought. 

A moth at Roxborough park resting on a fleshy, fuzzy plant which, I think, is called Wolly Mullein. I loved this moth's mane. It looked like something out of a science fiction or fantasy work. Maybe this moth is a Pseudaletia unipuncta or Schinia snowi. If I had to place a bet, I'd go for something Schinia, but that's as far as I'd go. Noctuidae: Moths of North America 

Butterflyscape

Roxborough State Park, butterfly season. Okay, it's not a macro, but I liked it. 

This picture was taken at our local butterfly house about a month ago. For all you folks who aren't spider fans, maybe this next group of photos will be more soothing. :)

This is a newly released butterfly. Whoever thought a butterfly could look goofy? 

Here you can see the palps of the cannibal spider as well as the diaxial fangs in the huge chelicerae. While setting up my camera I startled the cannibal away a few times, each time he returned and began to feed in the lower part of the abdomen, but slightly different puncture sights each time. I did record a bit of "chewing" once the spider became acclimated to my close presence.