Tooling around the house in preparation for Halloween, I found this little lady near the ficus that our neighbor planted to mark the property line:
She’s a spiny-backed orbweaver, Gasteracantha cancriformis. I wrote about this species last year around this time (spiders are most numerous and visible in the fall), but I finally got a couple relatively decent pictures of one and wanted to show the world.
I’ve been trying for some time now to get an image that shows this darn spider’s eyes. I’m beginning to think I’ll have to capture one and pose it, but that goes against my photography ethic: don’t do anything that might cause distress to the subject (or the photographer)! (I don’t have a bug-collecting kit with soft forceps; it might be about time to invest in one.)
As a new comer to Florida, I had my first run in with a fire ant nest last January, turns out I had a severe allergic reaction to the venom.
Because I have been “bitten” by a black widow and a brown recluse and the reaction was severe, I spent weeks in pain.
I need to know what spiders are poisoness and and which ones I can just push aside while walking around the parks.