Today I drove about twenty-thirty kilometers north of my hometown, passed through the small village of Chabrunichi, and parked the car on the side of the unpaved road that leads through the woods, vineyards, and fields.
In this post, you'll see the insects and spiders that I photographed there.
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This small spider with an interestingly shaped abdomen is the Cyclosa conica, a species from the family Araneidae.
Colors and markings can vary from individual to individual. This other spider of the same species, photographed nearby, is slightly darker.
When I left the spiders ...
... I noticed a squash bug on the vegetation underneath them.
This is the Syromastus rhombeus. The family is Coreidae.
Here you can see the tiny flowers ...
... that form beautiful, fragrant clusters ...
... on the Fraxinus ornus trees that grew by the road.
Underneath the flowers, among the leaves on one of the lower branches, I noticed something that looked like a minuscule piece of some dried-out plant material fallen from the flowers.
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A better look through the macro lens revealed a strange creature with long fangs. This is a larval stage of some green lacewing from the Chrysopidae family. It's hard to identify the exact species because quite a few very similar ones are present in the area. At this stage, the young larva uses its own excrements to build a protective shield.
A juvenile Gibbaranea bituberculata spider was hanging from the twig. Just like the Cyclosa conica shown in the opening shots of the post, Gibbaranea bituberculata is a species from the Araneidae family.
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Here you can see the leaf buds on the branches and twigs of the Fraxinus ornus.
This larva ...
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... was photographed on the grass under the tree.
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I wasn't able to identify the species, but the family is definitively Cicadellidae.
It's a leafhopper ...
... but which one exactly - I don't know.
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A bit further, down on the ground ...
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... I encountered a mating pair of Cetonia aurata beetles.
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The metallic green coloration of these beetles is created structurally, caused by the reflection of light on the surface.
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These froghoppers, the Cercopis vulnerata from the Cercopidae family, were mating on the leaves of some shrub.
On the dried-out twig of the same shrub, in the lower part of the plant, I found a beetle from the genus Pseudocistela in the Alleculinae subfamily of the family Tenebrionidae.
Can't tell you the exact species.
Here you can see the flowers of the Crataegus laevigata plant ...
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... and the small beetle that I found in one of those flowers.
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I didn't notice the insect at first, only the flowers.
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Here you can take a better, more up-close look at the scene. As you can see, the beetle was feeding on pollen. Danacea nigritarsis is the name of this species from the Melyridae family. Beetles from this family are commonly known as soft-winged flower beetles.
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I spent a couple of minutes observing the flowers, and then ...
... I noticed a small red dot on the leaves of one of the nearby shrubs.
... when I came closer, I saw this beautiful Nigma flavescens spider from the Dictynidae family.
In this photograph, the spider is blurred, but you can see the delicate threads above it.
This flying female of the Formica fusca was resting on the nearby leaf of the same plant.
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On the way back to the car, I saw some movement down on the road.
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The Formica fusca worker was transporting the dead bee.
AND THAT'S IT. SOON I WAS DRIVING BACK HOME. AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.