Net-casting Spider

Description:

stick-like elongate spiders that build unusual webs that they suspend between the front legs. Net-casting spiders mature in summer. The prey-catching method of net-casting spiders is unique. At night they build a rectangular, postage-stamp-sized web, made with wool-like, entangling silk threads. These little nets are made among low vegetation, usually above a surface across which prey animals are likely to walk (e.g. a broad leaf , a tree trunk or even a house wall). After spinning its web the spider deposits some spots of white faeces on this surface to act as aiming points. The spider hangs head down from a trapeze of silk, holding the net in its front pairs of legs;and there it waits, its enormous eyes watching for prey movement across the white aiming spots. When an insect passes over the white target spots, the spider opens the stretchy web to two or three times its resting size and lunges it downward over the unsuspecting prey. The clinging silk net envelopes the insect, which is then rapidly bitten and wrapped. While eating its catch, the spider may start making a new net for its next meal. Prey animals include cockroaches, ants, spiders and even moths - net-casters seem sensitive to air currents and will lunge the net towards aerial prey. Prey as large as male trapdoor spiders and gryllacridid wood crickets are taken.

Habitat:

Bushland and gardens