nature journal: spider love

i would like to state up front that my title is not announcing my love for spiders, but rather a commentary on love between spiders.  just making that clear.  if you could have seen the disturbed look on my face as i waded through spider images in my google feed, searching for the identification of the ones i captured in these photos, my spider aversion would have been readily apparent to you.

i originally captured these photos for my get it scrapped! august photo challenge.  i used them for the "arrow to my heart" slot as i assumed the female spider ate the male after mating.  apparently, this isn't the case (although i did stumble across this disturbing image in my quest for knowledge).  the truth of the matter is that the female green lynx spider mates with one male and then stays behind to take care of their 238 babies while the male is allowed to go off and "play the field," so to speak.

in true charlotte fashion, green lynx spiders are excellent mothers.  they will guard their egg sacs to the death, help the tiny spiderlings break out of the egg sac when the time comes, then protect them through their first molting.

read more about the range, hunting methods, and human benefits of the green lynx spider HERE.

and for a riveting science journal read on the mating behaviors of the green lynx spider, go HERE.  seriously, the writing is excellent.  it totally made me giggle.  you'll have to register to gain access to the full version, but it was a simple, quick process.