"Everybody's eating everybody, these days...."

This was going to be a post about all the little predatory critters Griffin and I were jumping up and down in delight to find in our postage-stamp garden these couple of months:









especially this little gem, a crab spider, something I loved dearly in my Altadena childhood, and hadn't seen since:



The amazing thing about her, is that crab spiders were a huge reason I'd chosen the lantana to plant on the terrace a year and a half ago, and when she showed up, I was almost in tears. I mean I really had given up looking for them, and here she was, almost like an answered prayer. They are somewhat chameleonic, that is they will slowly change their color to match their surrounding (which the green lynx spider and mantids will do too, incidentally), and just so charming, that for an arachnophobe, they are like spider fairies.

The missing characters, here, (in my little aestheticized fantasy, for surely there are more obvious environmental dischords than I could ever document in my little Eagle Rock world) are the orb spiders: the ones which spin the classic spiral web. A few years ago, they were the dominant arthrapod predators in the garden neighborhood, and had been for some time. Sometimes there were half a dozen orbs just in my garden. But as I'd noticed and encouraged the green lynx, I'd noticed fewer and fewer orbs.

Well, Griffin and I were too excited by all the mantids that showed up this year. I mean, what more dramatic and unnerving insect can you imagine (It's turning it's head to look at meee!!!).
And I wasn't seeing any more lynx, so I guessed what was happening, but didn't like to admit it.

Then a lone orb showed up for a few days outside my studio. I watched her happily for a few days. Then one morning I saw a lynx, weirdly hanging onto the now empty orb web (ok, I have to stop here, because I realize that most of my potential readers probably have no idea why any of this is of note, let alone interesting; I can only say that I have been an amateur local naturalist from childhood, and have bored my audiences before; and these things really do matter.... to the spiders....)

Ok, spiders don't usually hang out on each others' webs, that's all. I knew my adored lynx had just eaten my adored orb-spinner, and didn't like to admit it.

But when I caught a verrrry fat mantis near the empty spot where another lynx had been guarding her new egg-ball, I had to let go of my co-existence fantasy, and give in to survival of the fittest. My wail of annoyance called out my 8-year-old from his Harry Potter-watching nest in the livingroom.

"Whatsamatter, mom?" (concerned)

I explain the sequence of disappointing voracity, a bit apprehensive of his deep-felt sorrow for our garden favorites (he's wont to get quite moody at demises).

"Man," he says, turning back to the door. "Everybody's eating everybody these days....."