Come into my Larder said the spider to the wasp

[marlunn]

One from late last year - garden spider with a late wasp - very late at this point !
if you look closely you can see her fangs - red and black

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Looks like that wasp has been dead for a while.
Nice shot.

[Shadowman]

Nice capture.

[Barbara Ponder]

Great shot Mark!

[IzzieK]

Very nice shot, Mark...and also the title is a bit eerie...have you tried saying this several times in your mind in a low voice (tone?)

[deetheturk]

Nice capture Mark, good to see you posting Macro stuff!

[TheBigE]

Nice shot, and as Izzie has said a tab bit eerie. Well done

[DonnaK]

Great catch for both of you Super details and I really don't want those fangs digging into my skin!!!

[marlunn]

Alan, saw it go into the web about 5 mins earlier - came back to it after it had been bitten and she had started to wrap it - as it was in our garden it was a great opportunity.

John, Cheers,

Thanks Barbara,

Izzie, yep - I did hear Vincent Price saying it

Cheers David, impatiently waiting for this years bugs to start to show up so I can get back into the finer details of life

Thanks Eric,

Aww she wont bit you Donna, her fangs wont pierce your skin as they are too small, but they are impressive for her size - will try to get a woodlice eating spider this year, Dysdera crocata - now they can pierce human skin and give a nip !

[bnnrcn]

Spot on !

[marlunn]

Thank you Binnur, appreciated

[DEAN01]

Very well done, great detail.

[marlunn]

Cheers Dean, appreciated

[Geoff F]

I have seen wasps deliberately targeting spider webs to steal prey. They scare off small spiders then cut through the web and fly off with their stolen prize.

And I have also seen some wasps becoming over bold and trying the same trick on the webs of larger spiders. They ended up like this one!

[marlunn]

yep - was a web too far for this one, funny the female spider was involved in courting at the time the wasp took the dive into the web and she had to move away from the male to deal with this - about an hr later I got the courting shots of this female and a male - was a good afternoon in the garden for me !

[IzzieK]

yep - was a web too far for this one, funny the female spider was involved in courting at the time the wasp took the dive into the web and she had to move away from the male to deal with this - about an hr later I got the courting shots of this female and a male - was a good afternoon in the garden for me !

Did you take photos of them or you just end up admiring their "exercises"?

[marlunn]

This is the clearest shot I got of the mating process - not very good, but hand held and they were tucked away in a shrub - It will be a project for the coming year to get better shots of the full 'dance' - the mating lasts a split second as the male comes in contact with the female, the sperm is passed over on his palps (you can see those at the front of the male the club like appendages) by touching them to her abdomen, if he gets the approach or the contact or the move away wrong - he is dead! This guy seemed to be a real smoothy - he managed to make contact 3 times and escape unscathed.

[IzzieK]

Thank you...let the next process of procreation begins....baby spiders....