Pselliopus cinctus and Parasteatoda tepidariorum - Parasteatoda tepidariorum

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… John R. Maxwell, 6 September, 2009 - 6:37pm

Nice photo!

I'd vote for keeping this image in the guide.

… Ken Schneider, 6 September, 2009 - 11:35am

Thanks, I'm good either way.

… John R. Maxwell, 6 September, 2009 - 6:37pm

assassinated assassin

Now that's something you don't see every day. Would have been interesting to see how the capture went down. Where the Pselliopus body is really reddish orange, I wonder if that's an effect of the venom breaking down tissue. Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

… Andrew Williams, 6 September, 2009 - 10:42am

Web

I was shooting a planthopper yesterday that hopped right into a Steatoda web. The spider would approach, the hopper would struggle and the spider would retreat. This repeated over and over as the hopper became more and more entangled and tired out, then when the spider approached and the hopper couldn't move much it was over.

… John R. Maxwell, 6 September, 2009 - 11:08am

ah hah

The old wear out the prey trick. Come to think of it I may have seen spiders doing this too. I've reversed the trickery where I tickle the web to see if I can mimic prey well enough to get them to check it out. Most interesting to try are the funnel web spiders.

… Andrew Williams, 6 September, 2009 - 12:12pm

I think

I remember reading about a study that showed some spiders knew the rate at which insects struggle, so the researchers used tuning-forks of certain frequencies to get the spiders to respond. Funnel-webs are tough, mine run away way more than attack when I try the trick.

… John R. Maxwell, 6 September, 2009 - 12:19pm