Favoritos de wapogipo88

Very excited to find a Harvester in Central Park perched on a leaf of a hickory sapling in a wooded area of oaks, hickory species and hackberries. I wish the photos were better focused but I was challenged by quality of light, distance and the limitations of an iPhone. This beautiful example showed the burnt-orange undersides with darker patches outlined delicately in white and, when flushed, showed the black edges of the upper forewings. This is the first Harvester I have seen in Central Park.

We had the door open and this specimen flew inside the house, stayed long enough for me to capture a few photos and then flew back out the door.
Photo #3 (blurry) is the only photo I have that shows the legs.

A scrappy expanse of silky refuges and capture webs littered with body parts of previous victims. When preferred prey is entangled, the female spiders emerge from their 'nests' and overpower it by grabbing its extremities. In this case, a wasp https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319446.
Presumably they inject venom because after a minute or so the prey stops struggling. Then they snip it out of the web and carry it into one of several 'nests' or refuges.
Unwanted prey, often beetles (see https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319435 ) are also killed but sometimes left in the web, uneaten. Ants, in this case, Maranoplus ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319390 )scavenge around the periphery of the webs, feasting on unwanted beetles or other left-overs.