My thoughts exactly. Mine sharing that baseball bat? On second though, I might spring for a crowbar.
lynne-42’s calls for sympathy seem to fall mostly on deaf ears :D.
After I looked closer at some of these little guys through my new (macro) photography hobby, and was met with lynne-42’s attitude while asking here for identification help, I must admit that my attitude certainly changed to be more compassionate than I had previously been. I can’t say that I share her unusual (but awesome) enthusiasm, as I do still find spiders highly disgusting and with a high ick factor, but they are at the same time very fascinating. Now when I find one in my apartment, I capture it for a photo shoot, then release it outside, of course while taking precautions to minimize the risk for physical contact :D.
Henrichek - you have made my day! Now find one outside in a web. Try giving it a name, and photographing it over a few weeks. You will discover even more how gorgeous they are! A macro lens changes the way you see the world.
An impressive array of photos. This example, of a different species, is worth looking at. NSFA.
CIAS!
If “LOL” means “I laughed out loud,” CIAS means I actually out-loud said “Christ in a sidecar!” when I opened that photo.
I’m going to *count *my pet birds tonight when I get home.
Can’t say for sure but it looks like the kind I encountered in my house in VT. Very fast moving and when cornered stood up on his hind legs as if in a standoff. SPLAT! End of standoff. Never was bitten so I don’t know whether dangerous or not.
The spider with the bird is a Nephila sp. (golden orb weaver). It is a very small bird, and the spider probably isn’t too rapt in it being there. They don’t tend to eat birds, but their very strong webs very occasionally catch a tiny one. Nephila are found all over the world. They are extremely docile and totally harmless. Stunningly elegant spiders.
I seriously doubt any of them would turn up here in Sweden. Right? … Right?
Oh, and while the arachnologists are around and the OP seems fairly answered, I hope it’s alright to sneak in an identification request of my own.
Any clue what this guy is? I don’t have any good size reference, but it isn’t nearly as large as it might appear in the photos. It’s sitting on the metal frame of my bike’s luggage carrier, which is maybe 7-8 mm in diameter.
Your are correct - no Nephila in Sweden. The spider photo you are submitting is in the genus Tetragnatha (“long-jawed orbweavers.” Offhand I can’t say which species of Tetragnatha; it resembles a North American species T. versicolor which doesn’t occur in Europe, which I realize is no help. There are about 6 species of the genus in Scandinavia: T. dearmata, T. extensa, T. montana, T. nigrita, T. obtusa, T. pinicola. I don’t think it’s either extensa or pinicola which I’m somewhat familiar with, but can’t narrow it down further.
Of course, no Tetragnatha or any orbweaver whatsoever is a danger to humans.
Thanks for that, arachnologus. I should have been a bit more specific with my rather rash “all over the world” Nephila. It should have read “all over the lucky part of the world”. Poor Sweden.
I puzzled over the image for identification, and didn’t even get close to Tetragnatha. What was it about the one in the photo which helped you identify it? Or are you just used to a very similar species? Can you see any sign of the ‘long jaw’ in the photo?
Thank you for the effort.
The identification is of no great importance, so I’m fine to leave it there. Although if you are curious you can take a look at the full resolution photos if there are some details that help in identification (I have no idea how you arachnologists do it).
I didn’t think so either, as we don’t have an awful lot of dangerous spiders around here. I ask mostly because I like to add the names to their description in my gallery.
Many will disagree with you there :D. With your interest, Australia seems like a nearly ideal place though, and you’d probably find our spider fauna lacking.
I’m not an arachnologist, just a natural history writer who is in awe of them! Thanks for these fantastic photos! These are very different to my home grown Tetragnathidae - there is so much to learn.
I found this one some day ago, small. That’s taken with 2.5x magnification. It was hiding in a groove in the pattern of a tire.
Maybe not enough for identification, but don’t bother with that, I just wanted to share the cuteness :D.
I would take a pretty good guess at a wolf spider there. Cuteness only exceeded by the little jumping spiders.
Wolf spiders (family Lycosidae) are hugely variable, from the large burrowing ones to small free rangers. I have at least three species here, including the large burrowers. How lucky am I?!! One of the large burrowers (Lycosa godeffroyi) , who I named Theresa, was instrumental in my arachnophobia recovery. I got to know her very well over two lots of babies, all carried on her back, and her eventual death at the beak of a horrible ugly creature, known as a bird (white winged chough). Her photo is on the Spiders page of my website, and shows the eye pattern is the same as the one you have here, although Theresa’s babies are covering her rear two eyes. http://www.lynnekelly.com.au/spiders.html
The spider on the cover of the book is a little jumping spdier - cuteness doesn’t get any cuter than that. She’s an American species, Phidippus sp., probably Phidippus mystaceus.
I could write about spider cuteness for ages, but I will have sympathy on anyone who has survived this far. Any more photos, Henrichek, and you will have one happy Doper here!
Yes, I have heard of the legendary cuteness of jumping spiders, though I have never encountered one myself. Do we have any of them around here, you think?
I live in the coastal region towards the north of Sweden, so we have a rather cold climate, but moderated by the sea so it isn’t too harsh. I think that limits the size of our spiders quite a lot, so we don’t get the enormous species. I think the largest in our country might be the Dolomedes plantarius, a raft spider. It is probably quite rare though, and most likely stays further south.
Great photos lynne-42 :). That is stuff of nightmares though. I’m not sure if I could handle spiders of that size. The baby spiders too… brr… :eek:.
To be honest I haven’t made many spider photos yet. My hobby is quite recent and I have rarely gone looking for them on purpose, and if I do, I don’t know how to best find them. Usually I capture and photograph the ones that find their way into my apartment, before I release them. It seems to me that we don’t have many large orb weavers that make huge webs, so the spiders are harder to find. I think most spiders I have encountered so far do not make webs, except the one pictured earlier. And those species who don’t make webs like running away and hiding. Advice?
It’s really quite a challenge to get any keeper photos with spiders of the scale that I have found. For example the last photo had a magnification of 2.5x, by reversing a 28mm lens + a 12mm extension ring.
In this setup, the available light is not enough and I need a flash. So there goes one hand to hold the flash, as I can’t afford a macro flash to attach to the camera. Ok, one hand on the flash, other on the camera. Now the problem is that the diaphragm is closed when the lens is reversed, so little light is let through when the lens is set to a reasonable aperture. If I wouldn’t need to hold the flash, I could use that hand to open the aperture lever while focusing. But as it happens, I usually I need to nail focus with a VERY dark viewfinder. So I estimate the focus and then fire off a burst while moving a miniscule amount. With some luck one of them has the focus where I want it. Rinse, repeat.
With slightly larger specimens I can use the 50mm reversed instead, and get a brighter viewfinder and less magnification. Then it becomes much less tricky.
I really wish I could get a proper macro flash :). Hmm, on second thought, I might be able to craft some diffuser to get the light closer to the lens while having the flash mounted.
Anyway. It is much easier to find insects to photograph, so I have many more of them. I’ve been looking for butterflies lately. Here are a few more with spiders that I made earlier this year. No particularly special photos though, and not nearly as spectacular as yours (not as frightening either) 
Little guy:
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/247/view/DSC_5162.jpg
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/349/view/DSC_5207.jpg
Dinner:
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/235/view/DSC_9685.jpg
In apple tree:
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/938/view/DSC_8176.jpg
Wolf? (these guys are seriously fast)
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/1050/view/DSC_5314.jpg
Ok. technically not a spider, in a glass (Opiliones?):
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/868/view/DSC_7034.jpg
Maybe I have some in my unholy mess of improperly archived and unfiltered photos.
This discussion feels like a pretty serious hijack though, I hope the OP doesn’t mind. Then again, I think we might have scared most people off already :D.
Same spider as before, in the tires rubber grooves.: http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/1048/view/DSC_0961-1.jpg
I was mainly looking at the general body form (shapes of abdomen, carapace, legs), very typical for N.Temperate Zone Tetragnatha. You can’t see anything you’d use in a key in the original photo. However, in the high-res versions from Henrichek’s later post, you can see the leg-femur trichobothria and the straight-across slit where an epigynum would normally be. The chelicerae (jaws) are nothing out of the way in this female – they’d be more notable in a male.
Definitely a wolf spider, likely in the genus Alopecosa (= Tarentula) or Xerolycosa. You have a number of possible species, which differ microscopically.
There are 25 jumping spider species in Norway, 31 in Finland; I don’t have a list for Sweden handy, but it should be similar. 8 of the ones in Norway occur in the central and northern parts.
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/247/view/DSC_5162.jpg
This is a crab spider, male, genus not immediately obvious (not a Xysticus nor an Ozyptila). You can tell it’s a crab spider by the orientation of the legs and by the very small circular eyes elevated on little bumps.
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/235/view/DSC_9685.jpg
Another crab spider, this one in the genus Xysticus. (note blunt-ended spines).
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/938/view/DSC_8176.jpg
This orbweaver is probably Araniella cucurbitina (you can see the epigynum which is the key character).
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/1050/view/DSC_5314.jpg
This is clearly Xerolycosa nemoralis. Note the little bunch of specialized white hairs at the front end of the abdomen.
http://83.255.187.228/gallery2/pictures_data/868/view/DSC_7034.jpg
Phalangium opilio, the one harvestman described by Linnaeus - so obviously it already occurred in Sweden in 1758! Now it’s found all over the world (including Australia), transported by humans.
If you want to see what can be done in the way of insect photography in northern lands, check out my friend Markku Savela’s photography site, done mostly in Finland.
Whoa, thanks a lot arachnologus. That wasn’t necessary, but maybe you don’t mind all this identifying. I am grateful.
It’s nice that you included some notable features of the species.
Interesting. Any idea on how one might find them? What environments do they prefer? I have never seen one, at least I didn’t know about them until some months ago.
That seems to be a good fit.
What are the hairs for?
Ahh, it’s quite common here. Probably the most well known and noticed arachnid due to it’s large size (for us it is large!).
Thanks. That’s quite a collection. I have some ground to cover
What can I say but Wow! That refers to arachnologus’ information and Henrichek’s photos and questions. If we have derailed this OP, then maybe we can start one on great invertebrate photographs.
Now to study all the images and comments. Thanks heaps, guys!
Well, that would somewhat depend on which species. Taking Evarcha falcata as an example, one that is big enough to notice and occurs northward almost or quite to the Arctic, it is active on the ground and lower branches of vegetation mainly in heathlands (not under dense forest canopy or in urbanized settings), from spring to fall. Jumping spiders’ style of movement is quite different from any other spider – once seen, can’t be mistaken, but if you’re expecting rapid running a la wolf spiders you may not notice them. You can see several videos of jumping spiders doing their thing on Youtube to give you an idea.
Sorry, haven’t a clue! You see, even arachnologists don’t know everything.