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Photo#177072
Molted body parts - right fang, ventral view, even closer - Phidippus audax - female

Molted body parts - right fang, ventral view, even closer - Phidippus audax - Female
Columbia County, Florida, USA
Just a tiny bit closer this time. :-)

This is viewed from nearly the same orientation and position as the previous ventral images. The lower left corner is the proximal end of the fang, and just out of frame is where it starts getting darker and eventually connects to the basal segment of the chelicera. The lighter-colored central diagonal area is the venom duct.

I'm not sure what the serrations are used for. Foelix, referring to H.M. Peters, suggests they are apparently used for clipping silk threads.(1) That's fine if you're rebuilding a large web, but I've only noticed web clipping in one jumping spider, a cleptoparasitic Pelegrina proterva while stealing food from a sheet web spider.

NB: The venom duct actually has a streaked and "chiseled" appearance throughout its entire length. The apparent smoothness results from its increasing diameter, eventually putting it outside the focus range of this 27-image stack. What you are looking at is basically a tiny horizontal slice through the center.

Images of this individual: tag all
Molted body parts - Chelicerae, dorsal view - Phidippus audax - female Molted body parts - Chelicerae, ventral view - Phidippus audax - female Molted body parts - Chelicerae, ventral view close-up - Phidippus audax - female Subadult - Phidippus audax - female Subadult - Phidippus audax - female Subadult - Phidippus audax - female Subadult - Phidippus audax - female Molted body parts - right fang, ventral view, even closer - Phidippus audax - female

Moved

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Jay, this image is outstanding!!
Are you using the MPE-65 or a microscope?!
Your work is inspirational.

 
Thanks Mike
I used a microscope for this one. Olympus BH2, 20x objective, and transmitted cross-polarized lighting (as illustrated at the top of this page). Fang is mounted in glycerin under a coverslip.

Photography with this thing has been surprisingly easy, and the results are so much better than before, but slide preparation (with genitalia) has been horrible pain in the rear so far. Feels like I'm using a pick-axe sometimes, with both arms tied behind my back!

 
Check
out this page if you haven't already, S3. Some insight on Jay's and others techniques.

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