The Spider She Already Knew

Species: Wasp Spider · Argiope bruennichi
Location: Sunny hillside near the forest edge · Bavaria, Germany
Observed by: Junior Field Agent, Junior Field Agent #2 & Bureau Chief

We know this hillside pretty well by now.

It’s one of those places where slowing down and looking closely almost always pays off. The sunny slope is full of wild plants, and on previous patrols we’ve found so many true bugs here that it’s starting to feel like their preferred neighborhood.

This time, we were walking a little farther up the path when Lena stopped at a large blackberry bush.

There was a pretty impressive spider web.

I was still trying to get a proper look at it when Lena had already made her call:

“Wasp Spider!”

I hadn’t even gotten as far as opening my identification app.

She was right.

Apparently, Someone Did Her Reading

Lena had recently borrowed a book about spiders from the library.

I’d seen her flipping through it, of course. What I hadn’t realized was exactly how much of it she’d quietly filed away for later.

Because there, sitting in the sunshine on a blackberry bush, was a spider she’d previously only known from a book:

A Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi).

The adult females are difficult to forget once you’ve seen one. Their abdomen is boldly striped in yellow, black and white — giving them the decidedly un-spider-like name of Wasp Spider.

And apparently making them recognizable enough for a six-year-old to identify one in a blackberry bush before her mother had worked out what she was looking at.

Noted.

A Very Good Place to Be a Bug

Our Wasp Spider seemed perfectly at home on that sunny hillside.

The species favors warm, open habitats with plenty of vegetation for its large orb webs. Grasshoppers are among the prey they can catch — and a sunny, insect-filled slope like this one provides plenty of hunting opportunities.

Despite the dramatic warning-color appearance, the stripes are mostly impressive from our perspective. Wasp Spiders aren’t considered dangerous to people.

We took our photos, had a proper look and left her exactly where she was.

Another species for our growing list from this little hillside.

And another reminder that bringing the Junior Field Agent along significantly increases the Bureau’s identification capabilities.

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FIELD NOTES

📍 Sunny hillside just outside the forest edge

🌿 Spotted on a large blackberry bush

🕷️ First Wasp Spider recorded by the Bureau

📚 Recognized by Lena, thanks to her library spider book

Bureau status: Observed in the wild · Left undisturbed

This Woodlouse Is Supposed to Be Grey.

Species: Common Rough Woodlouse · Porcellio scaber
Location: Bug Bureau HQ garden · Bavaria, Germany
Observed by: Junior Field Agent

Sometimes a Field Report starts with a long walk, a promising patch of wildflowers and several pairs of eyes looking for something interesting.

And sometimes Lena lifts a flower pot.

Inside was a random collection of bark, branches, rocks and whatever the field agents had found on our last forest walk — underneath a woodlouse that looked perfectly ordinary in every way except one.

It was orange.

Not sort-of-brown. Not warm grey.

Very definitely orange.

Same Woodlouse. Different Outfit.

At around a centimeter long, our orange visitor looked like a Common Rough Woodlouse (Porcellio scaber) — one of those species we normally wouldn’t think twice about finding in the garden.

Except P. scaber is usually grey, brownish or mottled.

This one apparently hadn’t received the memo.

IOrange coloration can occur in Porcellio scaber, and orange morphs are well known among people who keep and breed isopods. But this one hadn’t come from a breeder or a pet shop.

Lena had simply found her living in our garden.

Which immediately raised another question:

Was she the only one?

And Then We Found More

Naturally, we started looking.

In the same general area, Lena found a much smaller woodlouse with muddled orange coloration. Then we found another tiny one that looked distinctly orange-ish too.

One unusually colored woodlouse could have been just that.

Several in the same little patch of garden?

Now the Bureau was interested.

And so an ordinary afternoon of looking under things acquired an official investigation:

Project Orange. 🟠

A Temporary Transfer to HQ

We decided to keep the largest orange P. scaber at HQ for a short observation period.

The plan isn’t to keep her permanently. In a month or two, she’ll go back to the garden where Lena found her.

But there’s something we’d really like to know first.

If she’s female — and if she had already mated before we found her — she may produce babies while she’s here.

If that happens, we’ll be watching to see how many there are and how many of them are orange.

Maybe nothing will happen at all.

Maybe we’ll end up with a box full of perfectly ordinary grey baby woodlice.

Or maybe our garden has its own little population of orange Porcellio scaber hiding underneath the flower pots.

For now, we wait.

Project Orange is officially underway. 🟠

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FIELD NOTES

📍 Found under a flower pot at Bug Bureau HQ

🟠 Adult Porcellio scaber with striking orange coloration

🔎 Smaller orange-ish individuals found nearby

🏠 Temporarily transferred to HQ for observation

⏳ Planned observation period: 1–2 months

Bureau status: Project Orange · Return to garden planned

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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Will she produce babies while she’s at HQ — and if she does, how many of them will be orange?

Papa Brought Home a Spider

Species: Zebra Jumping Spider · Salticus scenicus
Location: Papa’s workplace · Bavaria, Germany
Observed by: Papa · Occasional Field Agent

THE STORY

There was a time when Papa finding a spider indoors would have resulted in a very different message to Bug Bureau HQ.

This time, he found a tiny jumping spider at work — and instead of getting someone to remove it, he contacted HQ.

“There’s a jumping spider here!”

Progress.

The little spider had been found inside the building where Papa works. At only around 4 mm long, she was tiny, but the black-and-white markings made us suspect a Zebra Jumping Spider (Salticus scenicus), like the one that lived next to out garden water spigot for a while.

And because Papa apparently takes his duties as Occasional Field Agent seriously now, he carefully brought her home for us to see.

From workplace visitor to temporary HQ resident

Zebra Jumping Spiders are commonly found around buildings, walls and other sunny surfaces. Unlike spiders that sit in a web waiting for dinner to arrive, jumping spiders actively hunt their prey.

They also have remarkably good eyesight — something that becomes very obvious when you’re watching one.

She watched us right back.

We set up a small enclosure so we could observe her for a while, offered her tiny flies and gave her water droplets to drink.

Two days later she built herself a little silk retreat.

And a little while after, she molted.

At that point, our temporary visitor was beginning to look suspiciously like a resident.

Meet Resin

Our Junior Field Agent and our Occasional Field Agent sat together and agreed on a name for our tiny new arrival:

Resin.

Since then, we’ve been getting our first proper look at what it’s like to care for a jumping spider — including figuring out exactly how small her food needs to be, watching her hunt and discovering just how much personality can fit into a spider only a few millimeters long.

Papa has even been helping catch and prepare flies for her.

Again: progress.

So this Field Report has a slightly different ending from most.

There was no immediate release at the end of our observation.

Instead, Resin was officially transferred from the field to Bug Bureau HQ.

And Bug Bureau unexpectedly acquired its first resident spider.

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FIELD NOTES

📍 Found indoors at Papa’s workplace

🕷️ Approx. 4 mm when she arrived at HQ

🕸️ Built a silk retreat and molted 2-3 days after arriving

Bureau status: Field find → Temporary HQ resident