spiders like what???

My mama had this tums on her nightstand and she went to reach for it (luckily it was light out) and there was this guy sitting on top eating the tums! My mama screamed out for me to grab a jar and HURRY!! The spider will not stop eating the tums!! She is lucky she looked before she ate it!!!!

hungry girl

Fern enjoying her meal! You can see the cricket hanging out of her mouth.

My ants~

I found a queen ant last fall and I decided to winter her over and I was excited to see her digging tunnels because after studying ants for a long time I knew that meant she was starting a colony. I noticed the rice shaped eggs a few weeks ago, and they were much smaller then. You can see in the picture above the eggs and the head of the queen ant. If you look hard, you can see the queen, her body is a golden color, her head is the dark grey part in front of the golden part,her eyes are the black dots on the dark grey. She is sitting on her eggs to protect them.
This is a close up of her head, she is cleaning her eggs.

Fun in the mail~

I love seeing this sticker on boxes in the mail......

Besides collecting caterpillars from outside, of various species, My mama orders several batches of Painted Lady caterpillars over the year. we have been doing this for over seven years. I will document this batch to show you how easy and fun it is if you have never done it before. They come with their own food which is the tan colored bottom. And they will hang from the top in their chrysalises. It is harder when you find them outside because you need to know what food they eat because some leaves may be toxic to them.

Woolly bears~

Here is a woolly bear caterpillar (on the right) And a woolly bear cocoon. I found them both as caterpillars in February.
This is the cocoon up close. The two white stripes are part of the moth that will emerge. It has been exciting for me to watch the transformation from caterpillar to moth, since the cocoon is so thin.

short video of fern cleaning herself

The video is a bit dark in spots, but you can still her pedipalps cleaning her legs.