Raft Spider Dolmides fimbriatus
e6filmuser
Registered Users Posts: 3,379 Major grins
This is an aquatic species, hunting on the surface of water but is not to be confused with its fenland cousin, the Great Raft Spider Dolmides plantarius. Dolmides is in the same family as the Nursery Web spider Pisaura mirabilis, the Pisauridae.
This was on the top of heather inflorescences in a boggy area of a local nature reserve. At first, it was rather inconspicuous, nestled down low, the stripes hidden by flowers. What I could see looked rather mouse-like in colour and texture. It eventually emerged and moved slowly across the flowers.
Those who think photographic spiders outdoors on a sunny day should know this. The spider was at about waist height. I had to kneel down close to the heather plant. It was surrounded by Sphagnum moss, which holds a huge amount of water relative to its volume. The moss offered little support to my knees as they sank through it into some rather cold water. (It took about an hour for my jeans to dry out).
I had some kind of problem with the flash function. Whatever that was (the subject was static), the images are distinctly soft. So, for what they are worth, here they are.
Since I posted this, I have checked the EXIF data and the shutter speed seems to have been accidentally changed from my default 1/250 to 1/125 in manual mode. Thus, daylight may have made a significant contribution at ISO 400.
Harold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raft_spider
http://www.arkive.org/raft-spider/dolomedes-fimbriatus/
Harold
This was on the top of heather inflorescences in a boggy area of a local nature reserve. At first, it was rather inconspicuous, nestled down low, the stripes hidden by flowers. What I could see looked rather mouse-like in colour and texture. It eventually emerged and moved slowly across the flowers.
Those who think photographic spiders outdoors on a sunny day should know this. The spider was at about waist height. I had to kneel down close to the heather plant. It was surrounded by Sphagnum moss, which holds a huge amount of water relative to its volume. The moss offered little support to my knees as they sank through it into some rather cold water. (It took about an hour for my jeans to dry out).
I had some kind of problem with the flash function. Whatever that was (the subject was static), the images are distinctly soft. So, for what they are worth, here they are.
Since I posted this, I have checked the EXIF data and the shutter speed seems to have been accidentally changed from my default 1/250 to 1/125 in manual mode. Thus, daylight may have made a significant contribution at ISO 400.
Harold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raft_spider
http://www.arkive.org/raft-spider/dolomedes-fimbriatus/
Harold
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