Beneficial Bugs

Spiders can be some of the best natural predators to have around...provided you know where they are and steer clear of their webs. This garden spider is using a patch of monkey grass to spin its home in a nice out of the way place low to the ground.

The zig zag pattern in the middle alerts us that this is an Argiope spider, not a European garden spider.  Similarly, Argiope spiders are usually strikingly yellow and black whereas the the Europeans are gray and tan. Don't worry, there won't be a test over any material covered here.

I was shocked when I did my morning plant inspection and noticed this:

My dragon's blood sedum was covered in bugs! Yikes! I hurriedly snapped some photos for identification and went inside to research.  My anxiety lessened as I quickly learned this probably wasn't a bad thing, and in fact, could be a good thing.  These strange guys are assassin bugs, and I have actually blogged about their kind before here and here! I learn something new all the time. Anyway, assassin bugs are good in the sense that they eat/kill/assassinate pests from plants, and since my succulents seem a little susceptible to caterpillars lately, I am leaving nature as is. I am sure it will all balance out.  Gotta love good ol' Mother Nature.

NOTE:

The lovely Priscilla from Blossom Hideaway informed me that my comment section was not accepting comments. I reverted back to a simple boring template for now just to appease the comment Gods and plan to have a permanent solution sometime in August when I get back from vacation. Or maybe September. 

Chameleon of a different kind

This small crab spider blends in a little too well with the new gold lantana. He raised up his legs in protest of having his photo taken.

Later, he was in a different spot...readying himself a snack. Apparently I'm not the only one he surprised!

Poor Caterpillar! 

My yard has a few trapdoors, apparently

During some recent digging, this fella turned up.  Although he didn't move a muscle upon his excavation, I moved several! What a sight! He is nearly the size of the palm of my hand. He definitely gave a creepy vibe, but the lack of movement was puzzling. Upon further investigation, I discovered it was a trapdoor spider. Pretty cool after all.  And our hunch was right, he is nocturnal. Hence the no daytime movement...we awoke him from his slumber!

Since we had allowed him to be our excuse to stop for the day, we returned boldly the next day with shovels in hand and sweat-bands in place.  And to our delight, only one more spider was found, and he was a fraction of the size of the previous one. With a quick flick of my spade shovel, I relocated him under the shed. This one moved quite a bit to be so sleepy!  No matter...decking is being built over that spot so we won't have to dig and see if anything else could be happily sleeping away the day in the dirt.