Madagascar Wildlife
Up close and personal with the hairy spider
A female tree-hole spider sits camouflaged on a tree trunk. I love this image; it highlights the beautiful and yet alienesque features of spiders when you observe them up-close and personal; the large jaws, the many eyes, the hairy exoskeleton. It is hard not to feel nervous when you are this close to the business end of an arachnid killer! This is a mother, and she spent days sitting motionless on the same patch of tree trunk guarding her eggs (cocooned in a flat protective sac under a break in the bark).
Location: Kirindy Forest, Madagascar
Photographer: Jason Gilchrist
