The MGS Forum
Gardening in mediterranean climates => Wildlife in the garden (birds, butterflies, and how to attract them) => Topic started by: Daisy on August 24, 2012, 10:21:59 AM
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This is my new friend. He or she has been in the same web now for over two months. He or she doesn't mind me working right beside it's web, as long as I don't trim the branches the web is attached to.
Daisy :)
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss112/daisyincrete/003-11.jpg)
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss112/daisyincrete/005-10.jpg)
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Lovely spider, but it's web seems to be a bit of a problem. I understood that the sort of randomness that we can see is due to something having an adverse effect upon the spinner his/herself. Is this true? Or is the answer that this example has just caught so much that the web has had to be frequently chopped about?
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Jill, you can see (just about) from the pictures in this discussion (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=493.0) that the web of 'my' Argiope is also a bit disorganized. I am sure this is due to it being well-used and/or just the middle part of the web (always more random), and is nothing untoward.
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Thank you Mike, obviously these super looking spiders are well fed. The odd looking zig-zag seam in your example has to have a very specific purpose, perhaps it just forms a permanent pathway and never gets chopped about like the rest of the web?
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;DI too have a new "friend" in my garden but am not able to photograph him/her.
About 2 weeks ago I bought some young Parsley plants because the excessive heat we have been experiencing had seen off all my existing ones. To ensure that I could look after them I planted them in 2 pots to grow on before transferring them to the garden at a later date. The pots were placed in a shady position on a small shelf at the back, North side of the house and I water them every morning. One morning I noticed that the small gravel ,that I topdress all my pots with to help prevent drying out, was disturbed on one pot and the compost rather mounded up. The next day it was slightly worse. A day or two later I realised that there was a hole in the compost to the side of the disturbance and a closer inspection brought me face to face with.....a toad - his eyes were open (do they actually close them? I suppose so) and he moved his head a little. I carefully moved back the Parsley stalks that were partly concealing the hole and left him in peace. The Parsley does not seem to be suffering and I have another pot and he is welcome to his cool retreat. :)
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I'm not sure we can class this chap as a new friend because we don't know how long he'll hang around. My wife spotted him this evening as she was strolling around the garden. We don't see them very often these days as the area is getting more built up all the time so they're doubly welcome when we do. Many of the older generation of Cypriots wouldn't agree with us as they considered them to be bad luck and killed them on sight.
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Nice.
I love these chaps/chapesses (I've no idea how to sex a chamaeleon). Every time I find one and start witching it, it doesn't take long before my mind goes a bit loopy trying to imagine how it perceives the world when its eyes swivel independently.
It is also curious, given how well they can colour-match their surroundings when they feel like it, when crossing a (black tarmac) road, they can choose to remain bright green! Presumably that might help their survival through avoidance of being run over (a recent adaptation), albeit while enhancing visibility to predators (which are what?).
I stopped to pick up such a green specimen on the road near home last year, and put it in my twincab (too risky to leave him there). Three minutes later, at home, could I find it? Eventually I did. It had crawled under the passenger seat and changed colour to a dark grey - matching the framework under there! I put him to work in our vegetable patch, but never saw him again.
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How wonderful! You don't often see one of those in a Mediterranean garden.
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What brilliant photos, Mike! The bottom one especially made me smile.
We have had increasing visits from chameleons since the garden has become more wild and native; I love them. The Portuguese, thankfully, don't seem to share the antipathy of the Greeks towards them, though they are inexplicably averse to geckos, which I also find a charming animal (and useful for hunting mosquitos, among other things!)
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I was in Crete last week, when at a certain point some one stopped us, she said she had some thing on her mind,
after telling us about it she felt relieved.
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Lovely photos Oron, glad your camera is not always just focused on plants!. Obviously your friendly jibes were picked up loud and clear by the natives. :)
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Looks to me like she was trying to hitch a lift!!
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Probably part of the new EU control imposed on Greece by the Troika, I’m glad she found everything OK.
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We have some four-legged friends in the garden as well, the green lizard below was very curious and not very scared, it didn’t mind being photographed this summer. We were not taught anything about lizards at the vet. school, could this be a Lacerta sp.?
The small, spotted lizards seem to prefer to stay on the inside of walls, this one somehow got inside my bag and followed me to the beach, I guess it may be a Mediterranean gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus?
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Jorun, it is a Mediterranean Gecko, lizard looks like a feamale of Lacerta viridis subsp meridionalis [Northeastern Green Lizard]
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Thank you, Oron, I had a suspicion the green lizard was L. viridis, but I did not guess the subspecies. I suppose this one is the same species, I saw it on the MGS trip to Epirus four years ago. It was sitting inside a small icon near the Konitsa bridge crossing the Aoos river.
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Am so enjoying these photos of our "frineds" :)
A sad coincidence, after talking about bright green chameleons on the road: today I found one run over on one of the roads through the garden. I sincerely hope it was not on purpose...!
On a lighter note, here are some photos of encounters with a chameleon and a gecko.
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And, WOW, Jorun, just seen this latest lizard; what a brilliant shot! :)
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Very nice Daisy!
He looks a well-fed one.
I can almost feel those strange feet on your skin.
Jorun - I like that last lizard shot; he looks very cheeky.
I saw a few nice lizards (and butterflies and violets) on a trip to Epirus (since you mention it) back in 1994, especially in the Vikos Gorge (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Vikos_Gorge_from_Beloe.jpg). They had brightly coloured throats, too. The pictures are on film, still awaiting scanning; one day, maybe...
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And I love the chameleon photos, Mike and Marilyn, I have never seen such a creature. The last photo was from the Vikos Gorge, a place worth visiting.
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Having mentioned in a previous posting that we don't often see chameleons on our property any more my wife spotted this little chap on our avacado tree this evening. We had returned from a day spent at the Annual Cyprus Cactus & Succulent Society Show in Nicosia and were strolling around the garden stretching our legs from the drive and enjoying the cooler temperature after the heat and humidity of the central plain when she saw him.
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Who does he/she remind me of?
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Alisdair,
Might it be...
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101015155605/muppet/images/f/f3/Kermit4.jpg
?
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My friend, the green lizard (Lacerta viridis ssp. meridionalis) is still staying near our house. I was picking som figs from our tiny fig tree, when I suddenly discovered I was not the only one there. The lizard was even bigger than last year, must be around 35-40 cm long now. It was watching me intently when I photographed it, wondering how to get away from from a sticky situation. I must admit I was slightly frightened at first as well, before I realized what it was.
I don't think it is stealing my figs, but probably enjoying all the ants licking the sweet juice oozing from the fig, so it is a useful companion animal.
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A very interesting photo. i hadn't realised that our green lizards have such complicated markings. I found rather a nice web site detailing a trip round northern Greece searching out snakes and lizards. http://vipersgarden.at/reports/gr08.php (http://vipersgarden.at/reports/gr08.php)
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On the subject of lizards, one of the things I found surprising on the Morocco trip was their absence. In the whole 10 days I saw just one, whereas here in Cyprus they are everywhere, all shapes and sizes. By comparison it's almost like living in Jurassic Park.
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To go back to Daisy's original posting on this thread. While I was taking my usual early morning walk around the garden I came across this character apparently enjoying a hearty breakfast.
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This is Argiope lobata, as discussed here
- http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=493.0
I don't know about you (anybody), but I find big spiders much less intimidating if they have a web. ...As opposed to the free-running types. We've had more tarantulas than usual here, and I can't say I'm very comfortable when sneaking up on one to photograph it. One night, in our electricity meter box, which also houses the irrigation controller, I was reaching in to press the override button and I almost pressed the adult tarantula that was sat there. That sent me running for a second!
Mike
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Yikes Mike! I would run for more than a second! Are tarantulas common in the Mediterranean? Are they in Ibiza?
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Susan,
Tarantulas in Ibiza...
Well Tarantulas actually comprise quite a large number of species, collectively the family - Theraphosidae;
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula, http://www.faunaeur.org/full_results.php?id=10635.
You'll see from the latter link there are eight species in Europe.
They are certainly known form mainland Spain (eg. Toledo and Andalusia), but I can't find definitive info for Ibiza.
They are also supposed to get around in packaged bananas. In Cyprus one is advised to be on the lookout for them in banana plantations. Maybe the same applies in Ibiza? Trouble is, in Cyprus at any rate, we have seen more tarantulas outside banana plantations than within them.
Let's just say I hope you don't come across one.
Mike
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Thank you Mike for your reply and the interesting link. When we were planning our move to Ibiza we were interested to read that Ibiza was free of snakes. Coming from Australia we were more than happy about that. But now it seems snakes are inadvertently being introduced in the crowns of Palm trees and Olive trees which are imported from North Africa and mainland Spain. Rotten things are a threat to the distinctive Ibiza lizard and other native wild life. Hopefully the large number of feral cats here will prevent them becoming too much of a problem.
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These guys come in a wide range of sizes. This is a fairly large one.
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I love these guys, John, here is a relative of the one you show below, it was sitting on a sage last autumn.
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2945/15484112851_382eeea95c_n.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/pAh8hX)_Z090134 Preying mantis on a sage bush.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/pAh8hX) by JorunT (https://www.flickr.com/people/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
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Now here's a jolly little gathering!