A few posts back I talked about a cool lens effect, where defocusing a subject far enough could make it virtually disappear. Yesterday, I captured an image that illustrates it even better. That’s really the whole purpose of this post. It’s not to creep people out or anything.
Your eyes went immediately to the left foreleg (right side of image,) didn’t they? The leg is extending almost straight towards the camera, and at this range and magnification, it almost completely disappears, so much so that you can easily make out details on the second leg behind it. The leg is complete, by the way, and extends down out of the bottom of the frame.
But while we’re here, look at those sad little eyes! My subject, having been spotted by The Girlfriend inside the screens of the porch, really just wanted to be left alone, and was very shy. I was able to nudge him with my finger into a better position several times, and he complied easily.
And yes, it’s a male – the large club-ends of the pedipalps (the tucked-in ‘legs’ alongside the face) indicate this pretty distinctly. This is a species of wolf spider, family Lycosidae, and measured about 2.5 cm in body length, which made it somewhere between 5 and 7 cm with leg spread – not the biggest I’ve seen, but impressive nonetheless. I perched him on the chive plants for this portrait, allowing me to get down low and catch the chelicerae (fangs,) and after a few shots, he wandered off the planter and ventured off someplace under the porch. We’ll see if I spot him again anytime soon.