Observações de vipinbaliga

Surgical precision - Amyciaea spider preying on Weaver Ant

Our Spider workshop in Belvai was very eventful. The field visits were all about seeing different spiders, explaining and answering questions from the participants.

We saw spiders hunting, breeding, sleeping, mating, weaving web, hiding in pain sight, deceiving us with Mimicry etc

Here is one observation among the many.

An Ant Mimicking Crab Spider had caught a Red Weaver ant and had suspended itself by a drag line to avoid being caught by other ants.

Look at the precise bite location! Such a big ant succumbs to the venom very quickly when it is delivered with precision into the nerve ganglia as seen here.

Huntsman spider babies - after 24 hours

After 24 hours I could notice few of them had separated from the group. Naturally wandering off. While the remaining were huddled together as if forced by an external element.

There was a high chance the entire group could be decimated if the resident house gecko shows up.

The spitting spiders were already catching and hoarding the spiderlings by the dozen.

To make things worse the mother spider had succumbed on the bathroom floor and was being consumed by Ghost ants. Possibly a natural death?

Staying in a group meant Inviting trouble.

I had a soft corner for these little spiderlings and started wishing they dispersed as soon as possible.

They did disperse, slowly, over a period of many days. But few of them stayed permanently inside the house. They could be seen scurrying away on the walls occasionally.

Most of them would eventually fall prey to birds, other spiders, ants and geckos. Only a handful might make it to adulthood

Huntsman spider babies

My dear wife Roopashree regularly finds interesting creatures around the house just like my mom and makes sure she shows it to me.

So one night when she told me there were 100s of tiny spiders in the bathroom I knew it might be something unusual.

Turns out it was! 100s of tiny Huntsman spider babies huddled together under the light bulb!

There was a resident female Huntsman spider which was carrying her egg sac, whom I was tracking regularly. I was eagerly waiting for the babies to hatch. However, one day she had vanished and I couldn't find her anymore. I knew she was hiding somewhere expecting the eggs to hatch.

I was right. We found these spiderlings in the bathroom and she was on the other corner of the room. She didn't look well. More on that tomorrow.

The spiderlings were tiny and the lightest accidental breath from me would scatter them everywhere.

So I asked Roopashree to hold the flash for me while I safely photographed them using the camera screen.

Got some wonderful images of the little hunters.