I'll start this story with a big, hairy spider ...
... one of the biggest species in this area where I live ... Istra peninsula, northern Adriatic, that is ...
... you can see him with the pray ... a cockchafer beetle enveloped in silk.
... and a lot of insects, big and small, can be found caught here...
From a distance, they look like some seeds or insects bodyparts, remainings of a spider meal ... but when the big spider goes up on the three branches to rest hidden in the foliage ...
... they come alive ...
... and start to move ...
This ...
...and this ... are actually the same spider... I swear.
... looks like a pretty different creature.
And now, before continuing this story ( there will be more surprises and spider attractions, I promise) I need to do a little digression. In one old post of the SPRINGTIME ADVENTURES series, I covered shortly a very similar orange colored species. It was the first time I encountered this type of spiders and became aware of their existence on larger webs of bigger spiders. I'll put a link to that post here because could be interesting to compare them.
https://steemit.com/photography/@borjan/springtime-adventures-episode-13-an-interesting-coexistence
And now, with this out of the way, let's continue.
As I was saying before I interrupted myself :) the spiders were feeding...
... but then a male and a female got close to each other ...
... it was a gracile hanging ballet that I saw for the first time in my life.
... it lasted a few minutes ...
... and then the spiders returned to feeding ...
... and running around acrobatically ...
... I followed them in those activities ...
... for a while ... an then ...
This time I photographed it with the sky as a background ...
... and the spiders became dancing silhouettes ...
... it lasted a bit longer this time ...
...and then was time for another round of feeding ...
... running around ...
... and crawling ...
... and then ...
... another mating ...
... and with that third one ...
... and with a few more shots ...
... of these minuscule wanders ...
... oh :) I almost forgot to mention ...
... sometimes they camouflage themselves in this position ...
... that make them look like ...
... I don't know like what exactly ... something that is not a spider I guess ...
And now :)
This is really coming to an end ...
Hope you don't mind this much spider talk ... and don't have any serious arachnophobia issues ...
... have a good day ...
... wherever on the planet you are ...
As always in these posts on Steemit ... all the photographs and GIFs ... are my work.
THE END :) That's it for today.