#spiderbehaviour — Public Fediverse posts

#Arachtober 18: an Eastern parson spider (_Herpyllus ecclesiasticus_), a stealthy and fast-moving active hunter, feeding on a male _Zygiella_ missing-sector orbweaver. (This was right behind a female's web.) You can see the distinctive "knees" of the male's pedipalps in focus in the second picture.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #spiders #SpiderBehaviour #Araneae #Gnaphosidae #Araneidae

#Arachtober 12: a small yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) perches on a fence post and releases a stream of silk strands that are separated and carried aloft by the breeze and (as we've learned in recent years) atmospheric static electricity. If the silk catches on something, the spider can use it to bridge a long gap. Smaller spiders can be borne aloft entirely and traverse long distances, a behaviour called ballooning.

#ArthroBeauty #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae

#Arachtober 12: a small yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) perches on a fence post and releases a stream of silk strands that are separated and carried aloft by the breeze and (as we've learned in recent years) atmospheric static electricity. If the silk catches on something, the spider can use it to bridge a long gap. Smaller spiders can be borne aloft entirely and traverse long distances, a behaviour called ballooning.

#ArthroBeauty #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae

#Arachtober 12: a small yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) perches on a fence post and releases a stream of silk strands that are separated and carried aloft by the breeze and (as we've learned in recent years) atmospheric static electricity. If the silk catches on something, the spider can use it to bridge a long gap. Smaller spiders can be borne aloft entirely and traverse long distances, a behaviour called ballooning.

#ArthroBeauty #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae

#Arachtober 12: a small yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) perches on a fence post and releases a stream of silk strands that are separated and carried aloft by the breeze and (as we've learned in recent years) atmospheric static electricity. If the silk catches on something, the spider can use it to bridge a long gap. Smaller spiders can be borne aloft entirely and traverse long distances, a behaviour called ballooning.

#ArthroBeauty #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae

#Arachtober 12: a small yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) perches on a fence post and releases a stream of silk strands that are separated and carried aloft by the breeze and (as we've learned in recent years) atmospheric static electricity. If the silk catches on something, the spider can use it to bridge a long gap. Smaller spiders can be borne aloft entirely and traverse long distances, a behaviour called ballooning.

#ArthroBeauty #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae

Ooh. Some cool new research on slingshot spiders (_Theridiosoma gemmosum_).

"Saad Bahmla (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) and colleagues, including Todd Blackledge (University of Akron, USA), discovered in 2021 that they could trick the wily arachnids into releasing their ballistic nets by simply clicking their fingers. Might the weapon-wielding spiders be listening to deploy their webs even before their victims have blundered into them? Sarah Han, also from the University of Akron, and Blackledge decided to test the spiders’ reactions […]

"Sure enough, the spiders let loose their webs when the flapping mosquitoes were in the vicinity. But when Han took a closer look at the movies they had recorded, it was evident that the insects never touched the webs with their protruding front legs. The spiders were capable of launching the structures even before an insect impacted the web. And when Han tried the same trick, but this time waving a tuning fork, pitched at the tone produced by the flies’ whining wings, in front of the web, the arachnids still released their webs to rocket forward. The spiders must have been listening for the approaching insects, letting loose their webs when the mosquitoes were in range, before the insect had blundered into it."

Article (like normal people newspaper style article, not a scholarly article): https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249732/363194
Paper: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249237/363202 :OpenAccess:

#Arachnews #OpenAccess #arachnids #spiders #SpiderBehaviour • #Araneae #Theridiosomatidae

Ooh. Some cool new research on slingshot spiders (_Theridiosoma gemmosum_).

"Saad Bahmla (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) and colleagues, including Todd Blackledge (University of Akron, USA), discovered in 2021 that they could trick the wily arachnids into releasing their ballistic nets by simply clicking their fingers. Might the weapon-wielding spiders be listening to deploy their webs even before their victims have blundered into them? Sarah Han, also from the University of Akron, and Blackledge decided to test the spiders’ reactions […]

"Sure enough, the spiders let loose their webs when the flapping mosquitoes were in the vicinity. But when Han took a closer look at the movies they had recorded, it was evident that the insects never touched the webs with their protruding front legs. The spiders were capable of launching the structures even before an insect impacted the web. And when Han tried the same trick, but this time waving a tuning fork, pitched at the tone produced by the flies’ whining wings, in front of the web, the arachnids still released their webs to rocket forward. The spiders must have been listening for the approaching insects, letting loose their webs when the mosquitoes were in range, before the insect had blundered into it."

Article (like normal people newspaper style article, not a scholarly article): https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249732/363194
Paper: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249237/363202 :OpenAccess:

#Arachnews #OpenAccess #arachnids #spiders #SpiderBehaviour • #Araneae #Theridiosomatidae

Ooh. Some cool new research on slingshot spiders (_Theridiosoma gemmosum_).

"Saad Bahmla (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) and colleagues, including Todd Blackledge (University of Akron, USA), discovered in 2021 that they could trick the wily arachnids into releasing their ballistic nets by simply clicking their fingers. Might the weapon-wielding spiders be listening to deploy their webs even before their victims have blundered into them? Sarah Han, also from the University of Akron, and Blackledge decided to test the spiders’ reactions […]

"Sure enough, the spiders let loose their webs when the flapping mosquitoes were in the vicinity. But when Han took a closer look at the movies they had recorded, it was evident that the insects never touched the webs with their protruding front legs. The spiders were capable of launching the structures even before an insect impacted the web. And when Han tried the same trick, but this time waving a tuning fork, pitched at the tone produced by the flies’ whining wings, in front of the web, the arachnids still released their webs to rocket forward. The spiders must have been listening for the approaching insects, letting loose their webs when the mosquitoes were in range, before the insect had blundered into it."

Article (like normal people newspaper style article, not a scholarly article): https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249732/363194
Paper: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249237/363202 :OpenAccess:

#Arachnews #OpenAccess #arachnids #spiders #SpiderBehaviour • #Araneae #Theridiosomatidae

Ooh. Some cool new research on slingshot spiders (_Theridiosoma gemmosum_).

"Saad Bahmla (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) and colleagues, including Todd Blackledge (University of Akron, USA), discovered in 2021 that they could trick the wily arachnids into releasing their ballistic nets by simply clicking their fingers. Might the weapon-wielding spiders be listening to deploy their webs even before their victims have blundered into them? Sarah Han, also from the University of Akron, and Blackledge decided to test the spiders’ reactions […]

"Sure enough, the spiders let loose their webs when the flapping mosquitoes were in the vicinity. But when Han took a closer look at the movies they had recorded, it was evident that the insects never touched the webs with their protruding front legs. The spiders were capable of launching the structures even before an insect impacted the web. And when Han tried the same trick, but this time waving a tuning fork, pitched at the tone produced by the flies’ whining wings, in front of the web, the arachnids still released their webs to rocket forward. The spiders must have been listening for the approaching insects, letting loose their webs when the mosquitoes were in range, before the insect had blundered into it."

Article (like normal people newspaper style article, not a scholarly article): https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249732/363194
Paper: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/23/jeb249237/363202 :OpenAccess:

#Arachnews #OpenAccess #arachnids #spiders #SpiderBehaviour • #Araneae #Theridiosomatidae

Re: feeding spiders sugar water, mentioned in today's #Arachtober post (https://flipping.rocks/@nev/113328625087318283): in the wild, a wide variety of spiders have been seen feeding on nectar, sap, pollen, etc. See Nyffeler 2016 [PDF]: https://www.americanarachnology.org/journal-joa/joa-all-volumes/detail/article/download/arac-44-1-15.pdf/?no_cache=1 Indoors, spiders have been seen foraging human food such as milk (old Reddit post I saw once and can't find anymore, trust me bro), mushed banana (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342109792), and corn (https://old.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1acq362/surely_this_is_not_normal_behaviour/). I think they must be getting more than just water content out of it.

#SpiderBehaviour #spiders

#Arachtober 11: in the same plant where I found a bunch of young _Mangora_, I also found this pirate spider (family Mimetidae)! Note the distinctive row of forward-pointing spines on its front legs, which you won't see with similar spiders like _Platnickina_ (family Theridiidae). These are spider-eating spiders who lure their targets out by, as the family name suggests, mimicking prey. More about them: <https://spiderbytes.org/2015/10/26/pirate-spiders/>

I suspect at least a few of the _Mangora_ will fall prey to this specialized hunter.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #SpiderBehaviour #mimicry • #Araneae #Mimetidae

Many of the plump female alates were quickly getting snapped up by spiders. I saw a grass spider (_Agelenopsis_) wrapping one up right in front of a bold jumping spider (_Phidippus audax_) who had clearly been hoping to capture it and looked up at me like "Did you see that?"

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #JumpingSpiders #SpiderBehaviour #spiders • #Araneae #Salticidae #Agelenidae

#SpiderSunday: under a stone ledge, a cellar spider (family Pholcidae) clutches her bundle of eggs.

Most spiders wrap eggs in sacs of protective silk and fix them to surfaces or hang them from a silk line. Some spiders carry their egg sacs around with them (e.g. Sparassidae, Pisauridae, Lycosidae). Others have eggs lightly scattered over a leaf and covered with a few thin lines of silk, which they guard (e.g. some Salticidae). Cellar spiders like this, however, wrap their eggs very lightly into a ball and carry it in their jaws. Towards hatching, you will be able to see the baby spiders' legs forming inside the eggs as curved stripes.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #SpiderBehaviour #Araneae #Pholcidae

Put together a video of the long-jawed orbweaver making her egg sac! https://youtu.be/Ntymw7nCpuI

It's a mix of still photos and video segments, and much of the video is kind of repetitive, so see the timestamps in the description or use YT's chapter feature to skip ahead if you like. Or watch the whole thing for the immersive experience, I guess.

#DailySpiderVid #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #SpiderBehaviour #Araneae #Tetragnathidae

On another tree I saw a courting male _Tetragnatha_ exuding a drop of semen onto a loose tangle of silk, then reach down and grab it with his pedipalps (the short appendages on either side of his jaws). In mature males, the palps are complex organs that are used kind of like turkey basters to inseminate females. I'd never seen this at all in any spider!!

Marked sensitive because, well, spider semen.

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #SpiderSex #spiders #Araneae #Tetragnathidae #SpiderBehaviour

Long-jawed orbweaver (_Tetragnatha_) making her egg sac, a tufted ball suspended from three strong lines between walls of willow tree trunk.

I see these egg sacs all the time but was unsure who exactly was making them, so when I saw this _Tetragnatha_ laying down the three silk lines I decided to watch!

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #Araneae #Tetragnathidae #SpiderBehaviour

Went down to the lake this afternoon to hang out with the _Pardosa_ wolf spiders. Young spiders, females with egg sacs, females with babies, mature males courting—everyone's out and enjoying the sun!

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #WolfSpiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

Went down to the lake this afternoon to hang out with the _Pardosa_ wolf spiders. Young spiders, females with egg sacs, females with babies, mature males courting—everyone's out and enjoying the sun!

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #WolfSpiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

Went down to the lake this afternoon to hang out with the _Pardosa_ wolf spiders. Young spiders, females with egg sacs, females with babies, mature males courting—everyone's out and enjoying the sun!

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #WolfSpiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

Went down to the lake this afternoon to hang out with the _Pardosa_ wolf spiders. Young spiders, females with egg sacs, females with babies, mature males courting—everyone's out and enjoying the sun!

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #WolfSpiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

Went down to the lake this afternoon to hang out with the _Pardosa_ wolf spiders. Young spiders, females with egg sacs, females with babies, mature males courting—everyone's out and enjoying the sun!

#DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #WolfSpiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

A ballooning wolf spider from down by the lake the other day! I like how in the third picture you can see its little claws hanging on to the silk strung between a gap in the railing.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

A ballooning wolf spider from down by the lake the other day! I like how in the third picture you can see its little claws hanging on to the silk strung between a gap in the railing.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

A ballooning wolf spider from down by the lake the other day! I like how in the third picture you can see its little claws hanging on to the silk strung between a gap in the railing.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

A ballooning wolf spider from down by the lake the other day! I like how in the third picture you can see its little claws hanging on to the silk strung between a gap in the railing.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

A ballooning wolf spider from down by the lake the other day! I like how in the third picture you can see its little claws hanging on to the silk strung between a gap in the railing.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #SpidersOfMastodon #spiders #Araneae #Lycosidae #SpiderBehaviour

Carrying egg sacs doesn't slow down mother _Pardosa_ wolf spiders! https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/227/3/JEB246579/342682 :OpenAccess:

Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.10.003 :ClosedAccess:

#spiders #SpidersOfMastodon #SpiderBehaviour #arachnews

#Arachtober 10: from back in June, a mesh-web weaver (family Dictynidae) back-combing a line of silk to turn it into a fuzz of nanofibres. Spiders like this have a special sieve-like silk-making organ called a cribellum. This in fact is the ancestral state of most spiders.

Cribellate silk doesn't use glue; rather, it melds with the waxy compounds on some insect exoskeletons. It doesn't stick very well to other surfaces. Later in spider evolution, spiders developed other types of silk that could catch different insects and support more ambitious aerial webs. However, for a minority of spiders, cribellate silk still works just fine.

More details in this 2017 paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0363 :OpenAccess:

#DailySpiderVid #arachnids #spiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #OpenAccess

#Arachtober 10: from back in June, a mesh-web weaver (family Dictynidae) back-combing a line of silk to turn it into a fuzz of nanofibres. Spiders like this have a special sieve-like silk-making organ called a cribellum. This in fact is the ancestral state of most spiders.

Cribellate silk doesn't use glue; rather, it melds with the waxy compounds on some insect exoskeletons. It doesn't stick very well to other surfaces. Later in spider evolution, spiders developed other types of silk that could catch different insects and support more ambitious aerial webs. However, for a minority of spiders, cribellate silk still works just fine.

More details in this 2017 paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0363 :OpenAccess:

#DailySpiderVid #arachnids #spiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #OpenAccess

#Arachtober 10: from back in June, a mesh-web weaver (family Dictynidae) back-combing a line of silk to turn it into a fuzz of nanofibres. Spiders like this have a special sieve-like silk-making organ called a cribellum. This in fact is the ancestral state of most spiders.

Cribellate silk doesn't use glue; rather, it melds with the waxy compounds on some insect exoskeletons. It doesn't stick very well to other surfaces. Later in spider evolution, spiders developed other types of silk that could catch different insects and support more ambitious aerial webs. However, for a minority of spiders, cribellate silk still works just fine.

More details in this 2017 paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0363 :OpenAccess:

#DailySpiderVid #arachnids #spiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #OpenAccess

#Arachtober 10: from back in June, a mesh-web weaver (family Dictynidae) back-combing a line of silk to turn it into a fuzz of nanofibres. Spiders like this have a special sieve-like silk-making organ called a cribellum. This in fact is the ancestral state of most spiders.

Cribellate silk doesn't use glue; rather, it melds with the waxy compounds on some insect exoskeletons. It doesn't stick very well to other surfaces. Later in spider evolution, spiders developed other types of silk that could catch different insects and support more ambitious aerial webs. However, for a minority of spiders, cribellate silk still works just fine.

More details in this 2017 paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0363 :OpenAccess:

#DailySpiderVid #arachnids #spiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #OpenAccess

#Arachtober 10: from back in June, a mesh-web weaver (family Dictynidae) back-combing a line of silk to turn it into a fuzz of nanofibres. Spiders like this have a special sieve-like silk-making organ called a cribellum. This in fact is the ancestral state of most spiders.

Cribellate silk doesn't use glue; rather, it melds with the waxy compounds on some insect exoskeletons. It doesn't stick very well to other surfaces. Later in spider evolution, spiders developed other types of silk that could catch different insects and support more ambitious aerial webs. However, for a minority of spiders, cribellate silk still works just fine.

More details in this 2017 paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0363 :OpenAccess:

#DailySpiderVid #arachnids #spiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #OpenAccess

#SpiderSunday: a running crab spider (family Philodromidae) guarding an egg sac nestled among pine needles. I mostly find small orbweavers like _Zygiella_ at the tips of the pine branches so this was a pleasant surprise.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #spiders #SpiderBehaviour #Araneae #Philodromidae

In other news, it's orbweaver mating season. Always a drawn-out and tentative process. These are a _Larinioides_ couple, the larger female on the left, male on the right.

#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #arachnids #spiders #orbweavers #Araneae #Araneidae #SpiderBehaviour