This morning I met my first yellow spider. I decided to shoot it instead.

The goldenrod crab spider I met in our pasture.

The web tells me this might be a goldenrod crab spider, Misumena vitia. Vitia means “bow-legged,” hinting at the long legs these spiders have and their funny gait. Genus Misumena means “hated,” but apparently these spiders had a different genus when they were originally classified.

These spiders don’t form webs. Instead, they hide themselves in flowers and await their prey to land within easy reach. The take-home lesson for me is that even the beautiful is a platform for our destruction.

The wasp with the awesome tail.

It turns out our neighbor is an American Pelecinid wasp, or Pelecinus polyturator. Poly- means many and oura means tail, referring to the many-segmented tail found on this female. She uses that tail to deposit her eggs deep into the soil. Her young then parasitically feed off larvae of certain beetles.

We’ll have to have her over some time.