Now I want a car microscope » « It’s 9am here, and you know what that means!

Frustrating morning in the lab

All right, I accomplished something this morning: I got all the juvenile spiders moved out of their cramped dirty vials and into bigger, much cleaner condos.

Unfortunately, my plan to photograph all of them so I can start documenting early pigment patterns (eventually to log changing — maybe — pigment patterns as they grow) was foiled by a series of problems: a) my camera battery was dying, b) the battery in the LED panel I use for extra illumination was completely dead, c) my lab is a shambles right now, and d) I forgot anyway that when spiders get a change of venue, they turn frantic and scamper all about. “This is not my beautiful house,” they cry, “where is that large collection of dead flies?” So no, I could not get beautiful photos. I posted a few attempts on Instagram, but gave up and just focused on getting everyone moved.

But tomorrow! a) camera battery is charged, & I’ll bring my backup battery, b) LED panel battery is charging now, c) lab will still be a mess, but I can work around it, and d) the spiders will have settled down and be resting in their new cobweb, so I can take my photos and also, as a reward, fling a fly into their web.

Now I want a car microscope » « It’s 9am here, and you know what that means!

Comments

  1. blf says

    [… A]s a reward, fling a fly into their web.

    We already know poopyhead has, ah, “weird” digestive habits  they eat peas (e.g.) — but scarfing down a web with spinderling and fly seems almost as “weird”… 🤢

  3. jrkrideau says

    Once you are done in the lab you can relax listening to this concert.

    HOW TO HEAR THE UNIVERSE IN A SPIDER/WEB
    A live concert for/by invertebrate rights

    Watch the concert stream here on
    December 31, 2020 | 22:00 CET

    http://arachnophilia.net/

    ear inhabitants of the world,

    It has long been a tradition to present a concert to welcome the New Year. This year, we would like to thank you for inviting us to share in this celebration, for recognizing our rights to sing with you on New Year’s Eve -and not for labelling us “urban pests” as many others do.
    Beginning the 31st of December 2020, we hope that you will take the time to spot our presence in the upper-left corner of a window, behind a radiator, between ceiling lights, under a wardrobe: this is our home as much as it is yours. We hope that by hearing and seeing us closely you will join this concert, and that at its end you would consider allowing our continuing but threatened, unlimited existence.

    This concert will unite us all. While this pandemic continues to divide people around the globe, we sing to engender a shift, to change anthropocentric and capitolocentric behaviours. We hope that in this New Year you might rethink a way that we can all live together, and renew the good will of cohabitation.

  6. billseymour says

    Reginald Selkirk @4:

    Hawley is one of “my” senators (scare quotes because I didn’t vote for him, I promise).

    He also supports the $2k checks which made no sense to me until I realized that he’s one of the “Trump says it. I believe it. That settles it.” crowd.  Like religious fundamentalists generally, he basically has no thoughts of his own.

    Quoted in the Newsweek article:

    … I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden.

    I’ll bet he’ll be happy to vote for Moscow Mitch’s bill granting relief from any liability to “mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter”. 8-)