This weekend, Catherine and I came over to Victoria to celebrate my birthday in Victoria with my family. As a present, we went in a flight in a Cessna 172 with my brother, who is a pilot with the Victoria Flying club and a photographer as well. This was Catherine’s first flight in a small plane (although she has been in a helicopter), so we gave her the grand tour of Victoria from the air.
Tag Archive | Victoria BC
An overly-cooperative model?
I found this beautiful gravid female Phidippus johnsoni hanging motionless, upside-down from a grass stem this morning. She had all the hallmarks of envenomation by a spider wasp (Pompilidae). She was unresponsive, had extremely limited movement upon prodding, and was basically dead to the world. Being such a large animal, it is possible the wasp was unable to drag the spider to her burrow, or perhaps I interrupted while the female wasp was scouting the terrain ahead. Anyway, I took some photos with this suddenly very easy to work with subject, and then returned her to her stem of grass. Perhaps the wasp will retrieve it, and if not it will make a good meal for someone!