Small Wonder

A teeny tiny red spider on the small fruit of the catchweed or bedstraw plant.
See bird feather for scale. (Click picture for larger view)

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain." ~ Henry David Thoreau

The bedstraw or catchweed (Galium aparine) plant is running rampant behind our fence. It produces these small prickly fruits that measure 4-6mm across. I took this picture with the bird feather as a background to show texture and give a sense of scale, but didn't see the passenger attached to the small stem until I downloaded to the computer. It is some sort of tiny spider, bright red and no more than 1.5 mm in length. For travel purposes the creature picked a perfect place to land as the spiny fruits are extremely sticky and end up as little burrs on shoelaces, jeans and in dog hair. This is truly a "small wonder".

Submission for SeeItSunday topic "small". (end of post)