The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • Monthly Image: Alien vs. Predator, Backyard Edition

    Late August is, as always, the season for giant orb-weaving spiders, one of which spun a web between two tall cactus plants on the patio and greeted us with this sight one morning:

    Spider vs. Dragonfly - overview
    Spider vs. Dragonfly – overview

    We’re big fans of both spiders and dragonflies, but it was obvious who came out on top in this contest:

    Spider vs. Dragonfly - front
    Spider vs. Dragonfly – front

    These things are unimaginably weird:

    Spider vs. Dragonfly - bottom detail
    Spider vs. Dragonfly – bottom detail

    Even with the spider busy at lunch, she has four eyes to spare. They reflect the flash and appear as white-centered dark dots near the middle of the image:

    Spider vs. Dragonfly - many eyes
    Spider vs. Dragonfly – many eyes

    I’m sure the red spinnerets are diagnostic:

    Spider vs. Dragonfly - side detail
    Spider vs. Dragonfly – side detail

    The spider tossed the empty husk over the side, then spent the next two nights and days parked in her lair, presumably digesting that big meal, and didn’t bother repairing the web:

    Spider vs. Dragonfly - spider at home
    Spider vs. Dragonfly – spider at home

    She spun a fresh web on the third night and caught a more manageable insect:

    Spider with smaller prey
    Spider with smaller prey

    All hand-held with the Sony DSC-H5, some with a 2x close-up lens. All the pix are tight crops, crushed to fit my arbitrary 750 pixel maximum and 200 kB size limit. If you need high-res original images for anything, drop me a note; I took far too many pictures of this encounter…