My spiders.

basin79

basin79

ArachnoGod
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Finally managed to get some pics of my juvenile female Gandanameno sp.







 
basin79

basin79

ArachnoGod
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Ungoliant said:
What a gorgeous spider, and cribellate to boot!
Click to expand...
Thank you for that. I'd never heard of the word cribellate before. I also didn't realise her silk wasn't sticky. I presumed it was as prey got stuck quickly.

So she's actually feathering the silk which in turn cases the prey to get tangled. Brilliant.

Every day is a school day. Thank you so much for that.
 
Ungoliant

Ungoliant

Malleus Aranearum
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basin79 said:
Thank you for that. I'd never heard of the word cribellate before. I also didn't realise her silk wasn't sticky. I presumed it was as prey got stuck quickly.

So she's actually feathering the silk which in turn cases the prey to get tangled. Brilliant.
Click to expand...
Yep.

Cribellate spiders have a special silk spinning organ called a cribellum that produces thousands of extremely fine silk fibers. As shown in your video, they fray the silk fibers by combing the them with the calamistrum (a series of specialized leg bristles) on their hind legs.

The result is hackled silk that is mechanically sticky even though no glue is used.

Even though it is more labor-intensive to produce, hackled silk seems sticker than silk with glue. I have several Kukulcania hibernalis, and their silk sticks to everything. I once spent 30 minutes with tweezers and a magnifying glass to remove Kuk silk from a Phidippus otiosus jumping spider that had inadvertently stumbled into a Kuk's web.
 
Last edited:
basin79

basin79

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Certainly not a good video. But I actually got to see her "hunt". NOT IN THE VIDEO.

 
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