What a day - starting with Parawixia, then mating in progress with both Nephila pilipes and Argyrodes flavescens and ending with the Singapore Air Force practicing for National Day (they made a Singapore flyer circle). Walking to the Nephila web, I passed a web with Parawixia quietly waiting for something. Interesting "face" on her dorsal side.
Being early morning, the female Nephila was quite busy with house work - mostly rebuilding her web, usually a daily affair.
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The at the Nephila pilipes web, an argyrodes stealing a bit of dinner
The male Nephila
A male Nephila mounted the female while she was munching on a fresh bee or fly or whatever
Here is some video that illustrates the Nephila signalling and mounting and brushoff process
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In the web are these little guys - Argyrodes spiderlings
Size scale compared with the Nephila leg
Now all about Argyrodes - the mating game. Its really complex and I'm just guessing at what is going on
The video displays this in action - sort of kiss and backoff and try again:
Now fast forward to 7pm. Some jet contrails appeared which is quite unusual for Singapore as all air traffic is away from populated areas (i.e. the entire country).
I saw two jets screaming down
Then level out and fly off.
Pulling back, it was clear that they made a circle - the Singapore Flyer
With Queenstown in the picture - it could be the Queenstown Flyer
Or the Alexandra Road Flyer - the colors were amazing
Some practice
C. Frank Starmer