I found one today while reviewing photos of a native bee on an endangered buckwheat flower. I never noticed the spider until I cropped the photo.
10 Likes
Beautiful! Cnemidandrena?
1 Like
No idea, I just take pictures so others can help id them. I added a link to the bee observation that has more photos.
1 Like
This happens a lot to me with marine life observations - there’s just so much down there that there will always be photobombers you didn’t even notice at the time. For example, my observation for Regal Angelfish was hidden in the background of a Blackspotted Puffer pic
Or this superbly camouflaged lizardfish
A trochus snail I didn’t notice at the time
This Moon Wrasse
A hard-to spot goby
This Variegated Wrasse
And a parasitic isopod attached to a juvenile Two-Lined Monocle Bream
11 Likes
That’s a springtail.
3 Likes
I thought springtails had shorter antennae
Edit: @Marina_Gorbunova my friend just showed me her photo of the fungi. I can see the legs in her photo. You were right. Not an amphipod.
2 Likes
There’re some with very long antennae, you’re right that usually they have short ones, https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1143317-Salininae
2 Likes
@chrisc I can’t identify the spider in the third, but I threw my AI image enhancing at it, FWIW. Maybe this could possibly help?
3 Likes
Okay, this one is fresh (yesterday). A moth caterpillar that had something green stuck to its head. Probably a seed but there seems to be legs (or hairs?) coming off it.
Here’s the headshot:
And here’s the ‘cling-on’:
4 Likes
That’s a plant part of some kind.
2 Likes
Yes, that’s what I thought. A grass sprout perhaps? This caterpillar was very slow and lethargic which made me wonder if it had some kind of parasite. Happily, it does not! Thanks.
2 Likes
Smooth Common Goldeneye hiding in a raft of Bufflehead.
Glyptobaris lecontei nectaring from the same flower as this Sweat Bee.
This Eastern Leaf-footed Bug is actually in the jaws of a Crab Spider.
Eastern Tent Caterpillar behind a Red-spotted Purple caterpillar.
7 Likes
This topic reminds me of a question I’ve been meaning to ask:
In theory, what’s the largest possible parasitic chain possible?
That is, how many organisms could be in a fleas-on-fleas-on-fleas situation, only with each level a distinct species?
2 Likes
Trick question! Ogden Nash knew the answer. (… and on, ad infinitum)
2 Likes
The Wikipedia page on hyperparasites mentions a chain of three (parasites) / four (total):
There are further levels of parasitoids, beyond secondary, especially among facultative parasitoids. Three levels of parasitism have been observed in fungi (specifically, a fungus on a fungus on a fungus on a tree).
Trigonalidae probably aren’t at the top for largest parasitic chain but their larvae apparently only develop if they have another parasitoid on which to feed:
What little is known about the biology of these insects indicates a remarkably improbable life history: in nearly all known species, females lay thousands of minute eggs, “clamping” them to the edges of, or injecting them inside leaves. The egg must then be consumed by a caterpillar. Once inside the caterpillar, the trigonalid egg either hatches and attacks any other parasitoid larvae (including its siblings) in the caterpillar, or it waits until the caterpillar is killed and fed to a vespid larva, which it then attacks. If the caterpillar is neither attacked by another parasitoid nor fed to a vespid, the trigonalid larva fails to develop. Therefore, they are parasitoids or hyperparasitoids, but in a manner virtually unique among the insects, in that the eggs must be swallowed by a host, and even more unusual in that there may be an intermediate host.
One of our local (South Korean) Trigonalidae species is Taeniogonalos fasciata, which I’ve been lucky enough to observe twice. Of course, who knows how many more time I’ve photographed the species ‘hiding’ inside a host or two.
That first Wiki link also mentions this passage from On Poetry: A Rhapsody by Jonathan Swift:
So nat’ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em.
And so proceeds ad infinitum.
3 Likes
Ah, @whaichi found the true, original source of this bit of whimsy. I was misremembering to think it was Ogden Nash.
2 Likes
Then there are virophages – viruses that infect other viruses. So that would be a chain of three, from host to primary virus to virophage. Now, if the host is itself a parasite of something else, that would equal the first example of a chain of four.
3 Likes