#vatia weaver

[cyanocoraxx]

british spiders & cool/weird things about them

- black lace-weaver (amaurobius ferox)

spiderlings practice matriphagy, meaning that they eat their mother after hatching.

- cave spiders (meta menardi & meta bourneti)

these are extremely photosensitive and are found exclusively in the darkest places, such as caves, sewers, tree hollows and tunnels. spiderlings on the other hand are attracted to light.

- copper sun jumper (heliophanus cupreus)

enjoys hanging out in dry, warm, sunny habitats. has a copperish metallic sheen in the sunlight. jumping spiders can jump 50 times their own body length, have excellent vision and are among the most intelligent spiders of all.

- candy-striped spider (enoplognatha ovata)

this species comes in several colour morphs, including lineata (spotted, no red stripes), redimita (two red stripes) and ovata (solid red band, least common). their blue-ish egg sacs are laid in rolled leaves and guarded until the spiderlings emerge.

- crab spider (misumena vatia)

this spider can change colour to match the yellow or white flower it’s hiding on. it does not spin web to catch prey, instead preferring to ambush insects that come to feed on the flower such as wasps and bees.

- cross/garden spider (araneus diadematus)

to recycle their silk, they disassemble and eat their own webs in the morning and/or evening or in anticipation of a storm. despite the complexity of the process it can be complete in a couple of minutes.

- giant house spider (eratigena atrica)

the eyes contain less than 400 visual cells and thus can only distinguish between light and dark. unusually for spiders, spiderlings are subsocial (definition: tending to associate gregariously but lacking fixed or complex social organization) for about a month after hatching.

- missing sector orb weaver (zygiella x-notata)

these spiders were given this name because the webs they create leave two sections without connecting threads. males that spin the best webs are most attractive to females. the abdonmen has a silver sheen due to guanine (a building block of nucleic acids) crystals under the skin.

- mouse spider (scotophaeus blackwalli)

these get their name from their velvety, soft appearance. individuals found outside are often larger than those found indoors.

- nursery web spider (pisaura mirabilis)

these guys carry their egg sacs around with them, can walk on water, and give each other flies as gifts. if the male presents the female with a “fake” gift, she will reject him.

- woodlouse spider (dysdera crocata)

specially adapted to hunt woodlice, they have relatively large fangs to pierce the hard outer shell. they sometimes prey on other spiders and centipedes.

- ant mimic jumper (synageles venator)

tiny jumping spiders that resemble ants. they even raise their legs to make it look like they have antennae. thanks to their appearance, they can get closer to prey without causing alarm.

- buzzing spider (anyphaena accentuata)

males vibrate their abdomen against leaves to attract females. they rarely walk on the ground and prefer to hunt for prey on trees and shrubs.

- cellar spider/skull spider (pholcus phalangioides)

the idea that these guys are the most venomous spiders of all has been debunked; pholcid venom is actually relatively weak even to insects. despite this, they successfully prey upon mosquitos and other spiders.

- long-jawed orb weavers (tetragnatha sp.)

when frightened these spiders lay flat with their legs stretched out.

- mothercare comb-foot spider (theridion sisyphium)

when their spiderlings hatch, a mothercare spider will feed them regurgitated food. as the spiderlings grow she shares larger prey with them.

- trashline spider (cyclosa conica)

straps food items and ‘trash’ to a silk line that runs through the middle of the web, supposedly to disguise the spider from predators.

- purse web spider (atypus affinis)

belongs to the same suborder as tarantulas, funnel-web spiders and trap-door spiders. they cast a tube of silk underground to hide in and cover the entrance with debris, wait for insects to crawl onto the tube, and then bites the silk to pull the insect in. they do not leave their web for any reason other than mating and thus are uncommon to see. they also mature slowly, becoming sexually mature at 4 years old. spiderlings stay with their mother for a year after hatching.

#spiders #british wildlife #txt #mine #entomology