Lives of Spiders. If a publisher or author needs quality macro photos of a couple of hundred species of spider there are few resources since not many photographers are nutty enough to have built up a library of that size. I am, and I have one. Along with many thousands of other arthropod photos.
I like spiders but they are not my favorite photographic subjects. Most have lots of little beady eyes and tiny faces, and they all have disgusting dietary habits. Orb weavers have a secret agreement that they will always point their heads to the ground so it is impossible to photograph their face.
I have a "pet" black widow who lives on my porch. Below her lair is a litter of beetle bits and the tangled mess she calls a web usually has some poor unfortunate beetle hanging in it. My basement also has a good few spiders and I know where they are by the piles of detritus and poop on the floor below them.
My favorite spiders are the large tropical spiders I've photographed in Malaysia, Singapore, the Peruvian Amazon, and elsewhere. They are typically very relaxed and even though they will kill and eat a frog, small bird, or lizard, they are very approachable,
I did not take the excellent cover photo of this book -- it came from Shutterstock. But I did supply dozens of the photos inside and they include spiders from all over the globe.
The author, Dr. Ximena Nelson is located in NZ and the likely reason she has a jumping spider on the cover is because she is something of an expert in that area. But this is a great book for anyone who wants to know more about spiders and for those, like me, who know a bit, but would like to dig deeper into their sketchy lifestyles and biology. Available on Amazon and the publisher, Princeton University Press.
