Tree Stump Spider

Description:

This spider is Poltys illepidus C. L. Koch, 1843 - the Tree Stump Spider. It is very small (less than 2 mm.). So I suspect that it is a male and very young. According to arachne.org, the males grow to about 6 mm. and the females to 10 mm. The same article explains that females make webs at dusk and eat them at dawn. Then they sit, motionless, all day. It also states that males do not build webs. However, my spider (which I think is a male) had a little tuft of silk, beside it on the twig. So, I needed to find out what the silk was for, if it did not build a web. The only way I could check was to to go out at night and have a look. If the spider had a web, it would be a female and if it did not,, it would be a male. Then I would be "stumped" regarding the tuft of silk. So, I went out, just after midnight and took a photo of what I saw (the fifth photo above and the sixth which is an enlargement). There was the answer to both of my questions. The spider is, indeed, a male (no web) and the tuft of silk was used in building a night retreat. The spider was peeping out at me, from behind his little fortification which was still under construction. I did not manage to get the spider in the picture. As soon as he realized that I was there, he hid at the back of his retreat and did not come into view again. I think that the little tuft of silk (visible in the daytime photos) was probably just left over from the previous night's retreat, which the little male would probably have eaten at dawn.

Habitat:

This tiny spider was spotted in our front garden this afternoon. It was sitting motionless on a thin twig of a seedling Bougainvillea (Bougainvillea spectabilis) locally called Bogambilya. Plant information from - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Bogambilya

Notes:

Pictures 1, 2 & 3 are just some different views of the spider and Pic. 4 is a habitat view - all taken in the afternoon. Picture 5 and its cropped enlargement, Pic 6, were taken a little after midnight. The spider refused to show himself long enough for me to get him looking out from behind his partially completed retreat, but the retreat is clearly in the exact spot where the spider was photographed during the day. P.S. As an afterthought, is it possible that what I have called a "retreat" is what arachne.org is calling a "web". If so, my spider would be considered to be a female. The five photos displayed on https://www.arachne.org.au/01_cms/detail....... are magnificent images of the spider, but it is a pity that no photo of the web was shown. That would have made everything perfectly clear, leaving no possibility of misunderstandings.