{"id":1116,"date":"2010-06-29T19:41:08","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T01:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2010-07-01T00:04:18","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T06:04:18","slug":"death-in-the-afternoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"Death in the Afternoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had thunder and rain this afternoon for several hours, but around six, sun broke through enough to illuminate the newly refilled lily pond.\u00a0 I went out to see what was going on with pondlife.\u00a0\u00a0 Two male Neon Skimmers, Libellula croceipennis<\/em>, were harrassing\u00a0 the four or five male Blue Dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis<\/em>, and also pestering the two female Neon Skimmers who were ovipositing in the pond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Neon Skimmer females “splash-deliver” their eggs onto mats of algae or waterside vegetation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They hover over the water,\u00a0 then dip down and use the tip of the abdomen as a sort of scoop to splash the water forward,\u00a0 instantly rising again.\u00a0\u00a0 The droplets of water contain the eggs.\u00a0\u00a0 This female oviposited constantly over a several minute period, moving from one area of the pond to another.<\/p>\n

But along with odonates, this pond contains a variety of pond life–water striders,\u00a0 giant water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, and usually one of the small water snakes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And fishing spiders, which in summer grow to be quite large.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Six-spotted Fishing Spider, Dolomedes triton<\/em><\/p>\n

Fishing spiders spend much of their time in the water lilies, under the leaves that extend above the water.\u00a0\u00a0 This one, I noticed, was attracted by the water movement of the ovipositing female as she splash-deposited her eggs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point, I thought “What if she gets too close–will the spider attack?”\u00a0\u00a0 The spider waited.<\/p>\n

Then:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She came too close; the spider jumped (alas, no picture of that leap) and grabbed; its weight bore the dragonfly down and it quickly scrambled into position to bite.\u00a0\u00a0 The dragonfly fluttered strongly, trying to break free, but in addition to the bite the spider had legs on the dragonfly’s wings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gradually, the dragonfly’s struggles ceased, the wing movements coming farther and farther apart.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I moved around the end of the pond to get a vertical view of what the spider was doing (besides killing a large dragonfly) the spider retreated to the cover of the lily pads, leaving the paralyzed dragonfly glowing in the slanting sun:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m sure the spider came back after I left.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile the other creatures of the pond went on about their business.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the Blue Dasher males took a breather from harrassing other small dragonflies, and below, a Hackberry Emperor butterfly suns on a water iris leaf.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s unusual that I get to witness predation on this scale–I really like Neon Skimmers and hoped this one wouldn’t be caught–or would get away–but if it had to be, I’m glad I was there to document it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had thunder and rain this afternoon for several hours, but around six, sun broke through enough to illuminate the newly refilled lily pond.\u00a0 I went out to see what was going on with pondlife.\u00a0\u00a0 Two male Neon Skimmers, Libellula croceipennis, were harrassing\u00a0 the four or five male Blue Dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis, and also pestering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21,4],"tags":[17,13,36,55,70,66,67],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mortality","category-photography","category-wildlife","tag-animal-behavior","tag-beauty","tag-butterflies","tag-dragonfly","tag-photography","tag-predation","tag-spider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}