May 252014
I love photographing orb spiders. Perhaps it is because they are not easy to spook. Tunnel web spiders dash off into their tunnels at the slightest shadow or provocation. And flying insects seem to know when your camera is in focus, choosing that moment to take off. Perhaps, too, it is because orbweavers are so beautiful. Here is a pair of them. The top is an orchard orbweaver (Leucage venusta), which I have photographed before, but this time as seen from above (or more precisely, from underneath, looking up at its top surface). The second is, at the moment, a mystery — one that I am hoping my friends at BugGuide on Facebook will be able to solve. It may be a Hentz orbweaver (Neoscona crucifera), but then again, it may not.
