Poec54
Arachnoemperor
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2013
- Messages
- 4,745
I got some Idiothele mira slings a couple months ago (which are growing quickly). They've been underground most of the time in silk tubes. As I was feeding an assortment of slings tonight, I looked back at the mira and noticed legs sticking out from a dirt/silk flap in one of the cups. Never saw any flaps before. The spider waited patiently as the cricket gradually investigated the entire deli cup. On one side of the water bowl (a lid from a 16 oz water bottle) was the spider's legs, on the opposite side was the cricket. As the cricket got close, in a millisecond the spider darted out across the water bowl, grabbed the cricket, and pulled it inside the tube. The lid instantly fell into place and there was no animal left visible.
It immediately hit me why mira has blue tarsi and metatarsi: they're lures for insects. They see the brilliant blue and come closer to investigate, maybe thinking it could be fruit or a flower, and if the vibrations are right, the insect gets hauled inside in the blink of an eye.
It immediately hit me why mira has blue tarsi and metatarsi: they're lures for insects. They see the brilliant blue and come closer to investigate, maybe thinking it could be fruit or a flower, and if the vibrations are right, the insect gets hauled inside in the blink of an eye.