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@nyr027.bsky.social
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nyr027.bsky.social
August 1, 2025 at 2:27 AM
nyr027.bsky.social
The claws of I think the dictynid. The two seen are complemented by another pair visible in the blur just behind. Also at 400x Likely one of our many linyphiids and probably not our one theridiosomatid. The spider is suspended upside-down, awash in the gentle fire of the lamp, glowing legs and pedipalps curled into focus and relief in front of a more distant light-soaked and softened cephalothorax with abdomen trailing out of frame. Probably at 200x More ethereal claws. Easy to see the smaller, more crooked medial claw next two the two symmetrical ones extending along the axis of the tarsus. Likely a from linyphiid. 400x
August 1, 2025 at 2:27 AM
nyr027.bsky.social
Almost like an egg from Alien. Very dramatic lighting. Genuinely beautiful. I don't remember which specimen this is from. Probably at 100x Tarsus and claws of what I'd guess was a linyphiid. This might have been at 100x Possibly from a different linyphiid (more than half our samples are from this family, and it has so many species we need to identify down to sub-family). You can make out serrations on this claw as well as, if I remember correctly/am not mistaken, a smaller medial claw whose tip points at a 90deg angle to the serrated one. This is definitely at 400x More ethereal claws reaching through the fog
August 1, 2025 at 2:27 AM
nyr027.bsky.social
Id'ing spiders at work and took some photos I really like.
Lots of spider claws (frequently need to know how many there are to distinguish between certain families) w/ a video to give some sense of the dimensionality.
Looking at them here they feel almost embryonic, peaceful.
Also cool crab spiders.
thomisid / crab spider Cephalothorax coloured like a glowing ember; abdomen alabaster with dark, seemingly random accents. Crab spiders have such distinctive eyes: small and widely distributed but deeply pensive to my mind; although they're hard to make out in any of the photos I took, and in our key they're identified simply by proportion of the legs after a few other families have been ruled out. I think this is my first cribellum. If I'm right, I'm pretty sure this was a dictynid. This is the underside/ventral view. The cribellum should be the small small white triangle positioned just away from the light-coloured spinnerets that are at the tip of the abdomen in the top right. Not all spiders have one, but those that do can produce so many silk threads of such small diameter (on the order of tens of nanometers) that it is often combed out by the back legs and in the process develops a 'woolly' consistency, in contrast with the threads produced by spinnerets used in weaving the webs that are commonly associated with spiders. I can't find too much information about the purpose of this kind of silk, except that due to how fine it is the intermolecular forces are so plentiful, and collectively so strong, that no liquid glue is required. Also that some species use it to create trophic eggs (which are used for feeding young rather than reproducing). philodromid / running crab spider Very intimidating-looking spider. Feels like a creature from another world. Flat, sleek and broad cephalothorax, dark orange brown with a seeming pulse of light within the crest of each lateral half. Its eight eyes somewhat reminiscent of the thomisid, but presumably adapted for the habits of a more active hunter, gathered at the front, but each still quite small. Long legs (even the back ones, which in thomisids are reduced), the same orange-brown as at the heart of the cephalothorax, with sparse but thick setae. A narrow, modestly patterned abdomen, a truer brown with beige highlights. Underside/ventral view of the philodromid / running crab spider The cephalothorax and abdomen are approximately the same size. From this view (the specimen simply inverted) we see the pedipalps the same darker brown as the abdomen.
August 1, 2025 at 2:27 AM
nyr027.bsky.social
Caught this huge little jumping spider snooping around the greenhouse at work, about the size of a penny. Could be P. audax, maybe, based on description. I only caught a glimpse of its legs at first and thought it might have been a bumble bee. Had beautiful metalic blue chelicerae.
June 3, 2025 at 1:48 AM
nyr027.bsky.social
🐌
A snail only a couple millimetres long, if that
May 30, 2025 at 10:07 AM
nyr027.bsky.social
my family gave me a dissecting microscope for christmas. here's a (mining?) bee at 20/60x, that I found already dead on the sidewalk a couple summers ago!

#insects #bees #microscopy #entomology
Obsidian-like bee thorax carapace with fuzzy golden hair emerging around the plates and obscuring the base of one of the wings Closeup of most of a silver glittering compound eye set in a dark and glossy plate with many small dimples all across its surface, with the base and first segment of an antenna and two small and bulbous, amber-coloured ocelli Closeup of the symmetrical (basically) linear array of three ocelli, that seem to stare out of the photo, centred between the two out-of-frame compound eyes
January 13, 2025 at 3:04 AM