Red Lynx Spider. Oxyopes elegans

The little garden occupied by the Elegant Lynx Spiders dried out and died during the big drought and that species seemed to disappear as well. At the other end of the garden the lawn mowing contractors were only mowing every month or so. Along the rear fence, beneath overhanging trees and behind the garage was a protected area of Wandering Jew and waste building products that went untouched for several years. The contractors finally poisoned the whole lot. In the fringe that was left along the fence these little spiders appeared. The one above is a male. His red head and thorax and black abdomen are different from the Oxyopes elegans that had been hunting the patch a few metres away a few years before. The spider below is the one female working her way through a skink that may have been injured by lawn mowing. Both Robert Whyte and Ron Atkinson have told me this is a Male Oxyopes elegans and that the species has very variable colouration