Size Really is Relative - _TNY_6181
One thing about macro photography is that it sometimes is very difficult to estimate size.
Sure you see that it is very small, but in the world of invertebrates, there are a great many levels of small.
I suspect you've seen a shot of a regal jumping spider - the large North American species with beautiful chelicerae in metallic green (males) or pink (females) often kept as pets. So while large for jumpers, they are still small creatures until you compare it to other species.
Like this one. It is a juvenile Sitticus terebratus in the process of eating a freshly caught gall midge (Cecidomyiidae sp) and at just ~2 mm in body length it is small enough to sit on just the eye(!) of an adult female regal jumping spider. But seeing it on it's own without good points of reference it is easy to think that it is about the same size as any other jumper even though it is a bit more difficult to capture detail here.
This was shot handheld at 5:1 magnification using a Canon MP-E65mm 1-5x.
The gall midge is also cool, although not much of it is showing here. They are generally very small and you don't really notice them, except these are the ones responsible for those round gall growth on leaves which serve as a combined house and food source for the larvae.
Size Really is Relative - _TNY_6181
One thing about macro photography is that it sometimes is very difficult to estimate size.
Sure you see that it is very small, but in the world of invertebrates, there are a great many levels of small.
I suspect you've seen a shot of a regal jumping spider - the large North American species with beautiful chelicerae in metallic green (males) or pink (females) often kept as pets. So while large for jumpers, they are still small creatures until you compare it to other species.
Like this one. It is a juvenile Sitticus terebratus in the process of eating a freshly caught gall midge (Cecidomyiidae sp) and at just ~2 mm in body length it is small enough to sit on just the eye(!) of an adult female regal jumping spider. But seeing it on it's own without good points of reference it is easy to think that it is about the same size as any other jumper even though it is a bit more difficult to capture detail here.
This was shot handheld at 5:1 magnification using a Canon MP-E65mm 1-5x.
The gall midge is also cool, although not much of it is showing here. They are generally very small and you don't really notice them, except these are the ones responsible for those round gall growth on leaves which serve as a combined house and food source for the larvae.