Black garden Ants, Lasius niger

The other day, when I opened the kitchen(outside) door, a little spider caught my eye. I then spotted quite a few of Ants, destined on taking this food source with them somehow.

Thing was that the Ants were so quick, it was very hard to get a look, let alone a proper photo of the poor little Spider.









It being far from easy, all theml running about vertically on the wall at the door, I thought that these Ants would be there every day, so instead I focussed in on another little Spider plus a tiny micro Moth.
Just look at this intricate design.

And have a look at the markings on this Spider's body.

2 Zebras Spiders

In May this year I spotted a very small spider walking on the wall, towards the light of the door. The nice thing with a digital camera is then that you can see much clearer the markings of these little creatures, once the pics are on the laptop.
On its abdomen it had markings which could have been embroidered. Or All sorts licorice.
At equal distance, it has three white lines over the abdomen, with a black line running through these over the length of the abdomen, from the Spider's body. Also, on closer inspection, it seems to have some kind of pincer shaped tentacles, up front.

I had been going through some of my photos of Spring Flowers, yesterday and had come upon pictures of Miss/Mister black&white as well. Thinking I should post about it, because I wanted an ID for it.

When outside in the garden wit my camera, something caught my eye, as it moved over the wall of the house. This is white pebble-dash, and very white when the Sun is out. Most of what I saw was that it was carrying a bit of leaf up front.

I was surprised to see that it had a similar pattern on its abdomen as the one I'd seen in May. Only difference was that this one, smaller as it was, had only two white lines. Would it get a third one in later life? Could it be that this was a juvenile? Or is the continuous white line in yesterday's Spider perhaps the indicator that these two are a similar specie? I think yesterday's was smaller than the one I saw in May.

Thanks to, fellow Irish blogger,Stuart Dunlop, of Donegal Wildlife, I am now able to put a name to this pretty little spider. It was a Zebra Spider, Salticus scenicus. And if you click on the link, you'll see it close-up.


Zebra Spider, Salticus scenicus , 26/05/09
(the black legs indicate it to be a male)



Zebra Spider, Salticus scenicus no. 2, 04/08/09:
(Female, which has these dappled legs)

Edit: it is not a leaf which she is carrying, she has caught herself some green Insect. In that case, "Well done to the little bugger, prey is almost as big as the predator herself.!"

(Apparently, when these Spiders hunt, they jump and pounce their prey. What a pity I had just missed that moment with Spider no.2. As you can see in the cropped picture, she had just been on the hunt for a good big meal. )
Wonder how long this will last her?


Zebra Spider, Salticus scenicus. no. 2, cropped: