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Photo#832464
mating? - Hyptiotes gertschi - male - female

mating? - Hyptiotes gertschi - Male Female
Port Moody, Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada
August 28, 2013

Food, not sex
Hi, Sean. During the past few months, I've had the pleasure of getting to regularly observe 3 of these spiders, each of which has an active web. I was terribly perplexed the first time I saw one adjacent to this strange, colorful, angular-shaped object. (My first impression was that it might be an egg sac.) After doing some reading and spending a lot more time watching these guys, I now know this is what their prey looks like after being wrapped in silk. Quoting from the article by Ed Yong which I've linked below:
"The uloborid spiders have lost the venom that most spiders use, and instead crush their prey to death by wrapping them in excessive amounts of silk; one species was documented using 140 meters to envelop a single insect."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/crebillate-spider-web/528585/
Fascinating stuff, eh?!

 
Super fascinating spiders! Th
Super fascinating spiders! They are really really odd, and seem to have a great mastery at hanging on individual lines.

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