A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Cyrtarachne
Light brown colour, about 25mm aprox. total large, with a large abdomen with 2 big brown spots. Cyrtarachne is a species of orb-weaving spider which is commonly known as Bird-dropping Spider because this is what they seem, it's also believed to mimicry a snail as a form of protection from predators.
Spotted at Campuhan Ridge Walk, Ubud - Bali. It aslo can be found in India (Kerala), Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan and Myanmar.
Spiders of the genus Cyrtarachne are known to feed mainly on moths. Webs of these spiders have several unique characteristics: they are horizontal, have widely spaced spiral thread, the spiral thread has low shear joint (one end of a spiral connected to a radius breaks easily), and the viscid “spanning” threads are coated with a unique glue capable of adhering to moths. Other source about this spider spotted at Bali Island: http://www.baliwildlife.com/photogallery... Classification: Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Arachnida Order: Araneae Family: Araneidae Genus: Cyrtarachne
Spotted on Nov 11, 2016
Submitted on Nov 18, 2016
21 Comments
Just found another source with a spotting of Cyrtarachne spider in Bali:
http://www.baliwildlife.com/photogallery...
Thanks Jordi. If not C. inaequalis it is a very similar species. I think that Bali is quite underscribed and undercollected. This document lists no Cyrtarachne species for Bali:
http://www.cacaospiders.com/IndonesianSp...
According to WSCA (World Spider Catalog) Cyrtarachne inaequalis distribution is India, China, Korea & Myanmar
http://www.wsc.nmbe.ch/species/3733
Thanks Leuba, António, Gilma and Felix.
Congratulations on the SOTD - great mimic indeed !
Great capture Jordi,congrats on the SOTD and thanks for sharing
Congratulations Jordi, this stunning spider is our Spotting of the Day!
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/projectnoah/pho...
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/projectnoah/status/8...
Beautiful!
Great pictures and info!
Ok Daniele, agree will leave by now at genus level, I checked some spider lists for Indonesia but not found.
Online images of C. bufo show it being much whiter. Have you found any species listed for Bali? In doubt my suggestion would be to leave it at genus level. I would like to feature it but we don't want to populate the internet with incorrect IDs ;-)
Thanks Daniele for the advise, yes I think you are right as C. Inaequalis looks more similar in colour.
Anyway I checked the 'Checklist of spiders from Indonesia and New Guinea' (2011)/ Kathrin Stenchly / Department of Crop Sciences, Agroecology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Germany as well as web based sources and still cannot find this specimen in Bali.
Thanks Albert!
Great images Jordi! Are we sure this is C. bufo? There are many species in the genus Cyrtarachne and I found it hard to find information about its distribution to Bali.This seems a better match to C. inaequalis for instance:
http://symbiota4.acis.ufl.edu/scan/porta...
http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/360439-C...
Wow!
That's a great find and nice pictures too :D
Thanks Sukanya
Super spotting!
Thanks Joseph
Good find Jordi!
Thanks NamgyaI
Great spotting JordiPrats!