Two narrow things that at first seemed to be one

Click for greater clarity and considerably larger size.

During the October 29th session that brought you a picture of a ladies’ tresses orchid, I stopped to photograph several developing seed heads of a native grass called hairy grama, Bouteloua hirsuta. On one seed head I was surprised to find this elongated spider, which Joe Lapp tells me belongs to the genus Tibellus. Note the ant on one of the spider’s rear legs. The little white thing at the far right end of the grass head is a flower; there would once have been many more of them, but the others had already fallen off or been knocked off.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman