Eastern Beach Tiger Beetle having a bad day at the hands of a Sand Hammertail Efferia
I’ve captured quite a few scenes of predation, mostly sequences or videos involving arthropods.
So ends a truly dramatic 4-minute battle between a Lasius ant and a rove beetle. The sequence has begun quietly, and then suddenly the ant attacks.
A snout mite preys on a smooth springtail.
A moment later in this sequence, the slender springtail at lower left pivots to lock in on the mite.
A cross orb weaver captures a yellowjacket, which struggles in vain to free itself. Half-speed video.
But then here’s a yellowjacket preying upon a juvenile orb weaver.
A yellowjacket makes short work of some sort of hemipteran, which didn’t look too lively to begin with.
Kind of grisly: yellowjackets stripping bare a rat carcass.
Jumping spiders are cute—unless you’re the size of an insect.
Video of a false widow spider tying up a brown marmorated stink bug, which it has already immobilized.
Here’s one of the first photos I shared in the Forum, of a comb-footed spider wrapping up a Banasa stink bug.
And finally, here’s a sequence of a common house spider wrapping up another brown marmorated stink bug.
I don’t have the pictures, but I have seen the following.
-The insides of a rabbit. Head and bits of fur were found a little while off. Ripped apart by a coyote.
-The head of a rabbit. Not the same rabbit. Eaten by a coyote.
-Bones of small mammals. Probably eaten on by coyotes.
-Two dead birds of different species. A robin and something else. Seems like they were both involved in a predator attack.
-A beheaded, dead squirrel infested with maggots. A predator ate the head, but left the other parts for some reason.
-A flat squirrel in the middle of the road. It was run over.
-A dragonfly with damaged wings stuck in a spiderweb. I rescued it.
-Half an earwig (front end) crawling out of one of those playground speaker thingies. Don’t know how it ended like that.
-A whole colony of ants descending on a worm. Fortunately for the worm, it was already dead.
-Dead salmon near a salmon dam. It looked like it could make the jump before it died.
-Shells of crayfish underneath a bridge.
Also, found at a supermarket: pieces of blue crab shells, such as claws, that were probably ripped off by other crabs.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/370559740
This was a hatchling that prematurely was pushed/jumped out of a nest at my mother’s house a few years ago. She had a little porch awning and the birds built a nest up there, and the hatchling was found on the porch, struggling. With gloves, I tried to return it, but the next season this was what I found when we were trying to clear out the nest. :(
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/371026600
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/370553614
Also, have never found a swallowtail without a bite taken out of its wing, or some other damage. (The latter pic is of a deceased one) :(
Speaking of eastern pondhawks, one of several times I’ve seen one cannibalizing another. They are especially fierce dragonflies
They are fierce. I have another photo of one in this topic eating a Halloween Pennant face first.
The Red-tailed Hawk is having a great day the small fuzzy creature in his talons not so much. I watched this hawk catch his prey on the street in our neighborhood and then fly it up to the tree across the street. I am amazed everyday at the amount of wildlife we have in our urban neighborhoods here in FL.
A Western fence lizard whose life ended quite violently: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/351538747
An Aphonopelma tarantula who likely went searching for a mate during a heat wave, and wound up dead partway across a road, where I found its (his?) remains being actively dismantled by ants: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/383938991