{"id":1882,"date":"2019-03-02T16:53:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/1882-tongan-giant-spider.html"},"modified":"2019-03-02T17:04:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T06:34:20","slug":"tongan-giant-spider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/1882-tongan-giant-spider.html","title":{"rendered":"Tongan Giant Spider"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- s9ymdb:401 --><a href=\"\/serendipity\/\" title=\"Robert&apos;s Ramblings\"><!-- s9ymdb:2549 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"serendipity_image_center\" width=\"1024\" height=\"580\" src=\"\/serendipity\/uploads\/land_photos\/1687-_MG_0528.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\nGoing back over some of my older photos I came across this golden orb weaver but the background was unusually green and lush. I usually associate golden orb weavers with the arid Australian outback so what confused me for a while is that I was expecting to see muted browns as I was sure this image was taken in the Flinders Ranges.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nGoing back over dates and travels I soon discovered I&#8217;d taken this image in the tropical lushness of a Tongan forest. With that realisation I was taken back to that particular day and how almost every walkway through that forest was barricaded by web after web after web of these giant spiders.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nTo say the least this experience triggered my old arachnophobia but at least the chance to photograph these amazing creatures went a long way to quell that innate fear.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>\nTongan Giant Spider, <em>Nephila tetragnathoides<\/em><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>\nPhoto: Robert Rath, &#8216;The Golden Orb Weaver&#8217; 1\/250s f\/4.5 ISO100 200mm<br \/>\n<br \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Going back over some of my older photos I came across this golden orb weaver but the background was unusually green and lush. I usually associate golden orb weavers with the arid Australian outback so what confused me for a while is that I was expecting to see muted browns as I was sure this &#8230; <a title=\"Tongan Giant Spider\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/1882-tongan-giant-spider.html\" aria-label=\"Read more about Tongan Giant Spider\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}