Whipping Around – Spidey Galore #4

April 15, 2013 at 11:58 pm | Posted in itchy fingers | Leave a comment
Tags: Animals, Bugs, Nature, Uniquely Singapore

Look at this photo. What do you see?

Huh? What? Some twigs right??

Look carefully….

Did you see an eye?

Can you also spot a thin strand of thread-like fibre at the top right?

Oh…You mean this thing is alive?? Look at the legs!

For those who guessed the Stick Insect, no, it’s not a Sticky… This is actually a spider!

Called the Whip Spider (Argyrodes flagellum), it lives in the low vegetation in mangrove swamp. This should be a female and it’s quite small…Itchyfingers were actually looking for another spider when we accidentally stumbled upon this one. We wouldn’t have spotted it if it did not move, cos it was so thin and well hidden…and with legs all stretched out close to the body, who would have imagine it to be a spider? Luckily, we have seen photos of this species before, and it was one of the spiders that we had wanted to find. Though we were lucky to find one, it was a very windy day and that was not good at all for macro photography…Ended up with many blurred photos… 😦

The Whip Spider stayed still for most of the time but we tried to nudge it a little
to see how it moved…This blurred photo shows it in a more familiar spider
pose, with all legs spread out…

It was amazing how it whipped around for the reverse flip-over! It happened i
n such a flash that it was so difficult to get a dramatic photo! Very frustrating
indeed!

Seems like Itchyfingers will need more luck to find another chance to shoot this spider…

Also see related posts:
> Seeing Red in a Tent – Spidey Galore #3
> Eating Its Own Kind? – Spidey Galore #2
> Jaws – Spidey Galore #1