spider Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Craig Rogers Photography

The Tarantula Wolf Spider Showed Me Her Babies This Morning

16th October 201816th October 2018Craig Rogers

I check the burrow of our local Tarantula Wolf Spider most mornings whilst walking Wally and although she has her babies all snuggled on her back, I’ve not yet managed to have a good look.

This morning, armed with only my mobile phone, she gave me a very brief glimpse of her babies.

The babies stay on her back until they are large and strong enough to fend for themselves. As you can imagine, she is being very protective of them and doesn’t come out of the burrow very often.

Although not a great photo, you can clearly see the babies on her back. Notice how one of them has left her back briefly and is on the burrow opening. It soon jumped back on.

Cobwebs In The Mist

12th October 201812th October 2018Craig Rogers

The weather forecast mentioned the chance of some clouds early this morning. Well, we had just one cloud, ONE BIG CLOUD. It seems the entire northern Algarve Hills were covered in thick hill mist this morning which has now made way for a warm and sunny day!

My morning dog walk was transformed into a stunning display of water droplets on the many Spider Webs. Armed with just my mobile phone, I snapped a few shots. Oh and whilst we are on the subject of Spiders, the resident Tarantula Wolf Spider now has many hatched babies attached to her abdomen, unfortunately, she is very reluctant to come out of her burrow so no photos yet.

Close-up Of Our Local Tarantula

19th August 201819th August 2018Craig Rogers

In this months article in the Algarve Resident, I will be writing all about the Lycosa tarantula, the Tarantula Wolf Spider that we have near the Quinta. Therefore, for maximum effect, I decided to try to get a “Macro” shot (technical name for Close-up).

I don’t own a Macro lens, but I do have a Reversing Ring which enables me to attach my 50mm lens to my camera backwards which is the “Poor Mans Macro”. I wrote a Blog Post about this a few years ago.

So here you have it, a close-up of our Female Tarantula Wolf Spider! If you missed my post with all the information about this “original Tarantula” Spider, you can find it HERE.

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The Brown Recluse Spider (AKA the Violin Spider)

24th July 201825th July 2018Craig Rogers

With my Tarantula Wolf Spider and Wasp Spider posts it seems that its all about Spiders at the moment, this isn’t intentional at all.

Today I was clearing out a space in our loft to make a new area for my new professional photo printer (more on this in the coming weeks) and I found a spider hiding. I knew immediately that it was a Brown Recluse. This is the only Spider in Portugal that can be an issue for humans even the European Black Widow or False Widow are not too bad.. It’s not a large spider and looks very harmless, however, it’s bite which is not always felt can develop into complications.

Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi)

20th July 201820th July 2018Craig Rogers

After photographing the local Tarantula a few days ago (This Post), I remembered that a couple of weeks back I took a photo of a Wasp Spider (also known as the Garden Spider).

Here you go (more info follows)!

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Tarantula Wolf Spider Served Breakfast (inc. Video)

18th July 201818th July 2018Craig Rogers

After discovering the Tarantula Wolf Spider burrow a few days ago (see blog posts), I decided to set up two cameras, one for a photography and another for video. I then dropped a Mealworm near the burrow that she gladly came out for a breakfast treat!

Due to the size, I think this is a female as they are considerable larger than the males. The female’s body grows to about 3cm whereas the male is only around 2cm. Also, the females live their entire lives in their burrows and the smaller males go off in search of females. In the winter they hibernate in the burrows. As you will notice in the video below, the burrow opening is almost 5cm wide which helps visualise the size of her.

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