There has been a beautiful Black and Yellow Argiope (garden spider)
living next to a sedum plant outside our door for a couple weeks now. Currently, our bees are enjoying the nectar from this plant, and, the spider is enjoying the bees!
We
took the opportunity yesterday to study this spider for a bit, and work
on the arachnid section of RSO. If you click on the picture you can get
a better view of his jointed legs, and even the fine hairs on the
legs. Underneath him is a bee he had just wrapped up.
We decided not to capture this guy in a jar, as the curriculum suggests, because we had such a clear view as it was, and we thought it would just be upsetting to the spider. Not to mention the wrecking of that awesome web! We did touch him a bit with a pencil, and were surprised to see him shake the whole web rather roughly, in order to, I'm assuming, scare us off. After identifying the two body parts (not three!), eight legs (not six!), and the joints in the legs (arthropod!), Charlie drew a picture of the spider for his notebook. He's not a big fan of spiders (understatement!) so this observation was a stretch for him!
Next up...a Roly Poly hunt!
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