Sunday, September 12, 2010

Zoo In My Yard



After showing y'all that nice big spider a few days ago, i thought i'd give you an update: Son put her in the turtle's tank. The kids did mention that there was "a hole" in the lid. But i tamped down my arachnophobia, kept my cool, and watched the egg mass cocooning process, like a good amateur biologist. Of course the next day the spider was no longer in the tank, and i had a look at "the hole". Four inches wide and 29 inches long... "A hole"? So i moved around the house very gingerly for the next couple of days, until she turned up building a web in the rec room book shelves. Son gave her her freedom, but i snapped a picture of her new, svelte body before she left.

I was watering the garden this evening and found a big, grape-abdomen-ed (must be egg-laying season) gray praying mantis. Which reminded me of the HUGE black witch moth the kids brought in the other night. And then we found some finger-sized green caterpillars munching down on my flowers, and then Son found this nice big Jerusalem cricket on the back patio. They are commonly called nina de la tierra locally. I guess those big, bald, flesh-colored heads look like baby heads when they are poking up out of the ground. And then the dog routed a big toad out of the garden. My yard is like some sort of big fat fauna paradise at the moment.

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