Jan 8, 2010

Parental Empathy

Photo source: Damselfly
What more could you ask for than an up-close-and-personal photo of a huntsman (huntswoman?) spider carrying about her egg sac. As a parent, it's hard for me not to give some grudging respect to this creepy-crawly with her parental devotion.

The spiderlings will go through several molts while still with their mother, giving them a few precious weeks of having her attention while their exoskeletons harden. Once again, as a parent, I can empathize with her. I'm not looking forward to the day when my own kids' exoskeletons sufficiently harden and they scatter to make their own way in life.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Another amazing photo! Thank you for your wonder-ful blog.

Unknown said...

Wow, damselfly has some amazing pictures!
Props for picking this one, RW.

See, people, spiders can be good moms :)

I love the dots on its legs.

Raging Wombat said...

Well, thank you, Victoria and Denise. Very kind of you.

DanaKara said...

I absolutely love this blog. You always have such beautiful pictures, and unlike a couple I have seen, you never have pictures of something awful, like a tortured critter. Nice to see you live up to your claims!

That said, I think this is a beautiful picture. She looks so pleased with herself.

Raging Wombat said...

Very kind of you, Rosewolfkin. Thanks a bunch.

stephen begin said...

never noticed diamond bokeh before, this must be an example of the kind of amazing work some people manage to pull off using the ever modest point and shoot camera.

BugLady said...

I think photography snobs out there like to demean the poor old point and shooters to try and justify the amount of money they spent in their SLRs! :p
(I'm being facetious)
But still, I've seen amazing pictures taken from even those little disposable cameras. I think the talent is in the photographer, not in the device.

For pictures of insects, point and shoots can be really good because bugs don't really pose for you, most of them want to run away as fast as they can. Having a fast camera is a huge help.

Most of my pictures were taken with a Sony W7 point and shoot. I love that old little cam :)
I'm not saying my pics are great or anything, but they don't suck, cmon :p
(If you want to see my pics I think you can just click my name on top here)

Unknown said...

Oh, maybe not. I've posted my url several times here, I kind of feel bad posting it again... I don't want to seem like I'm spamming RW's blog :D