Nursery Web Spider

Description:

A grey Nursery Web Spider of about 1.5 cm in body length. This one was up in the leaves of a bush and had captured a Tachinid fly. Many of the spider species in this family can walk and hunt on the surface of the water and are almost always found near water (thus the name Fishing Spider). If this is a male (and the extra long legs look like those of a male) than the fly it has captured may be intended as a "gift" for a female. Since the female will often eat the male, he brings her a gift of food to hopefully satisfy her hunger. Sometimes, the male will even offer a fake gift (ie: not food) wrapped in silk. Family Pisauridae.

Habitat:

Forest along the San Vicente River, Chiflón Waterfall EcoPark, Chiapas, Mexico 624 meters.

Notes:

They look very similar to Wolf Spiders, but the eyes are more similar size, while Wolf Spiders have a very large pair of front facing eyes. Nursery Web Spiders are solitary hunters and only the female will make a loose kind of web to protect her egg sack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_we... https://bugguide.net/node/view/291335 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinus_(spi...) https://bugguide.net/node/view/257437/bg... http://bugeric.blogspot.com/2011/12/spid... http://www.backyardnature.net/n/a/tinus....