{"id":13383,"date":"2013-10-27T15:20:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T19:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=13383"},"modified":"2013-10-27T15:20:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T19:20:27","slug":"quick-spider-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2013\/10\/quick-spider-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick spider fix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/CrabBalloon.jpg\" alt=\"CrabBalloon\" width=\"400\" height=\"396\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-13384\" \/>I was about to pick up a plastic storage bin out in the yard today when I noticed a little crab spider perched on it, so naturally I went to get the camera. He (yes it&#8217;s a male) was amusing himself by trying to <a href=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2012\/11\/muttering-darkly-behind-winters-back\/\" target=\"_blank\">balloon<\/a> away, casting a webline into the wind until it was carried off, whereupon he would set the drag, or whatever it is spiders do, and fly off with it &#8211; this is how spiders usually get from place to place, and it&#8217;s quite effective.<\/p>\n<p>At least, if the wind is sufficient, which didn&#8217;t exactly describe the conditions today. After a few frames I sat down next to the bin to make a minor repair, and he decided this was potentially dangerous, so he sailed off, making it less than a half-meter before coming to rest on my leg. I ignored him, and he continued to try and hitch a ride on the air. Once I finished, I gave him a couple of nudges which put him into defensive mode, seen below, before deciding to leap off towards the grass.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/WhatNothing.jpg\" alt=\"WhatNothing\" width=\"730\" height=\"397\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-13385\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>Don&#8217;t you just love those eyes? There are two rows of four, but the second is pointing more upwards and isn&#8217;t terribly visible here. You can easily see his pedipalps though, tucked in close to his face.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, the practice of holding out your thumb to hitch a ride actually came from spiders &#8211; the thumb is supposed to represent the abdomen held high in the air to cast a web. Bet you didn&#8217;t know that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was about to pick up a plastic storage bin out in the yard today when I noticed a little crab spider perched on it, so naturally I went to get the camera. He (yes it&#8217;s a male) was amusing himself by trying to balloon away, casting a webline into the wind until it was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2003,1370,2004],"class_list":["post-13383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-ballooning","tag-crab-spider","tag-would-i-lie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}