Garden spiders love asters. Nectar and pollen bring dinner right to their door. Here a Banded Argiope enjoys a well-wrapped snack.
Last year the Black-and-Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia)
was common on the asters. This year it's the Banded Argiope
(Argiope trifasciata) that set up shop on the Hairy Asters.
What makes some spiders "cute?" Jumping spiders are famously "cute." Here, in the asters, is one with an irresistibly adorable face, and a second one that just missed a moth-meal. The Two-Spotted Herpetogramma moth was almost fatally slow but the spider was even slower.
The Banded Argiope and the jumping spiders were active during the say. But as night fell another spider was setting up shop. This tiny night spider stretched her web next to the asters, between two stalks of Indian Grass. The outlines of the Flint Hills are visible in the background.
This spider, barely visible against the night sky,
was going to work just as the Banded Argiope
and the jumping spiders were calling it a day.
October 3, 2021.
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