Video of my male Western Spotted Orbweaver building his web a little as well as engaging an assassin bug as prey. You can tell it is a male by the enlarged pedipalps, which are used to store sperm. With the incredibly poor eyesight most spiders have, I believe it is most likely that as you see him towards the end spreading his pedipalps to the side and seemingly trying to bite the assassin bugs legs, that he was simply trying to find a route for his fangs in the nearest part of the insect by feel rather than sight. He seemed to remain stymied for a short time in this attempt, but must have later found his way around to a more suitable angle by which to get his fangs into the thorax or abdomen of the assassin bug, as I found it sucked dry and discarded the next morning. He is so translucent as this is only a day or two after his last molt. This footage was taken with a TERRIBLE camera and a 3-5x max magnifying lens held up against the camera lens as I try to clumsily hold both; just imagine what this footage would look like with a digital video microscope with 50-200x magnification, MUCH better resolution, and a stand to hold it steady. I am hoping to acquire such a digital video microscope in the relatively near future :)
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:45:51 +0000
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