Here’s odd. I saw my first picture of a spiny Micrathene spider some time last week, most likely in a #spidersunday post on Google+. Strange creature! That is what I thought, along with “never seen the like.”

So I go out Thursday this week, between thunder storms, to photograph rain droplets on the leaves in the yard, and what should I find building a web in the Rhododendron, but this strange and wonderful creature. At least I had been prepared 🙂

Come back inside to process the pics, and find that someone has just posted a series of spider images on Facebook, among them two different spined Micrathene. There’s odd. That’s what I thought.

This particular Micrathene is the Arrow-shaped. Micrethenes are orb weavers, but this is not the Arrow-headed Orb Weaver. That is a different spider, though I have seen this one listed as Arrow-headed Micrathene as well. Odder.

The only speculation I have found as to what the spikes are for is that they might make the spiders harder to swallow for any interested predators. 🙂

Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the new Nexus 7.

And for the Sunday Thought. It is exactly this kind of odd in nature which reinforces my belief in an intelligence and personality in the universe. In God. It is, as I see it, much easier to believe that this creature, with its elaborate miniaturized structure and its exotic coloration, was designed…than it is to believe it just happened by any sequence of random events, no matter how long you give chance to work. Of course if Spinny Micrathene spiders were the only evidence I had, I might be able to avoid believing in God…but it is all part of an all encompassing  reality that is being proved moment to moment in my life. An Arrow-shaped Micrathene in the Rhododendron on a rainy day, after spiny spiders on Google+ and just before spiny spiders on Facebook is just part of the ongoing proof…exactly what I have to come to expect of the slightly whimsical (from my point of view) love of the creator God.