One of the supposed benefits of having Joro spiders around is the fact they are known to eat marmorated stink bugs, an invasive species here in America.

They also eat the native stink bugs, and that's also good, because stink bugs are destructive pests.  They cause a lot of damage to crops every year, and in this state, agriculture is a big deal.  The photo below is one I took today of a Joro* eating a stink bug.  I think the prey in question is a native brown stink bug, not the invasive marmorated one.  It seems to have the pointier shoulders of the Euschistus genus rather than the rounded ones of Halyomorpha halys.





*This is the same Joro that ate her male suitor in my previous post.  Hungry girl, I guess.  And I see it didn't take long for her to find a new boyfriend.   

Joros sometimes build their webs right outside of windows using the outer part of the window frame as anchor points.  This provides the best opportunity to take up-close photos of them without disturbing them or accidentally getting their silk on you or your camera.  You can just put your camera right up to the window.

This one is munching on some tiny little bug; not sure what.  You can also see some of the yellow coloring of the silk in this photo.  And if you look closely enough, you can see the tiny hairs on the spider's legs.





I hope y'all are enjoying my "amateur naturalist" documentation of this species.  It's been more fascinating for me to observe these critters than I would have imagined it would be.  I guess it helps that they're so big and colorful and just plain interesting to look at.  I really like the yellow silk, too.  The concept of a beautiful spider that spins a golden web and is perilous to any male who would try to win her hand is downright Romantic, like a tragic story from Greek mythology, and it's really no wonder that this species appears in Japanese folklore.

Makes sense now. Even more crazy than batty...

A while ago, I think I observed a possible origin for the expression, "high-tailing it out of here," meaning getting out really quickly. During my morning walk, a skunk jumped out the bushes but fortunately ignored me. It was running from a coyote would be my guess--but it ran with its tail more elevated than normal, though not as elevated as if it were going to spray. Apparently, some animals need to raise their tails to reach their maximum velocity.

Irrelevant to sayings, but just a little fun fact not worth starting a separate thread for, apparently, possums stand on their hind legs if they need to get a better view. I saw that just a couple days ago for the first time. (Of course, we already know where the expression, "Playing possum," came from. I've seen that, too.)

Eww, gross.   

And difficult to clean. 

I think I know the answer to this one.

When someone is said to be going 'bat sh1t crazy' this is probably what they mean. This is one of the cottages in my retirement village. It is the worst example, but several cottages have been affected.