Strange Things today

[Za]

I was out all day today wandering around and found some strange things, first was a web which what looked like a brown lump in the middle, when I touched the web which enclosed the lump, it turned into what looked like a spider snow globe, hundreds of tiny spiders all ran around then reformed into the mass again

Next I saw what I think was a female Stag Beetle, but something had eaten all its legs off, it was just lying there trying to walk, no sign of what attacked it, I moved it to a decaying log


Then as I looked at the ground, I saw what seemed to be loads of little hopping things which I thought were insects, but no, they were the tiniest little frogs I have ever seen, much smaller than normal baby frogs.




An interesting day.

Za

[John_M]

That's interesting.
The web looks like the nursery web of Pisaura mirabilis. The mother spider is usually lurking somewhere close by if not actually on the web until the spiderlings disperse.
I have no clue about the beetle, but the small frogs reminds me of when I were a wee lad in Scotland; we used to find similar sized toads in and around some brick structures which were, I think, the remains of the ventilation shafts of a disused coal mine. I've never seen such small ones since, until today.