Spider in the grass

This amazing photo, by Cambridge biological sciences professor John H. Brackenbury, is a highly-commended runner up in the British Wildlife Photography Awards.

Via Alex Wild, who thinks Brackenbury was robbed of first place. Can't say I disagree.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: beautiful • contests • Nature • photography • Science • spider

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Lobster

LOOK OUT, IT’S BIGGER THAN THE SUN!
Huwman

That’s beautiful . . . and slightly disturbing.
William Binns

Isn’t this the organization that gave the top spot to a photo of a rented wolf last year?
- Beanolini
  
  Isn’t this the organization that gave the top spot to a photo of a rented wolf last year?
  
  No, that was The Natural History Museum’s ‘wildlife photographer of the year’.
  
  I’m assuming it’s not really related to a scorpion, but rather is a wasp
  with morphological similarity in the stinger… I hope.
  
  No, it’s not really a scorpion, nor is it a wasp, nor is it a (true) fly, nor is that a stinger. It’s a huge penis.
ill lich

“Spider and I, sit watching the sky, in our world without sound. . . . “
Antinous / Moderator

Here’s a drawing I did of a similar spider about 20 years ago.
awjt

The first place and second place winners don’t have nearly the range of emotional depth that the spider picture has. Clearly the judges are smokin dope.
Rich Keller

Araneus quadratus for the win! I mean for the Honorable Mention!

I agree, this should have won first place. I’m a big fan of the orb weavers in general.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

I just checked to site to see what won.

I think I know why.

“Scorpion Fly On A Leaf.”

Scorpion Fly?!

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THERE ARE FLYING SCORPIONS.
- Lobster
  
  There used to be spiderflies too but they kept catching themselves.
- awjt
  
  scorpion flies are so yesterneutrino.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THERE ARE FLYING SCORPIONS
  
  Would you accept a solfugid? They eat scorpions. They even chase down small birds and eat them.
  - http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
    
    That’s pretty creepy looking, and a spider that preys on birds is formidable, but a winged scorpion… that belongs in the jungles of Barsoom, not the meadows of Britain!
    
    I’m assuming it’s not really related to a scorpion, but rather is a wasp with morphological similarity in the stinger… I hope.
El Stinko

Alas.
potilas

An amazing photo, which at first glance looks like bad photoshop…