A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Scytodes sp.
Body length approx 1cm
Open area near edge of tropical wet forest, Barra del Colorado Wildlife Refuge, near Cano Palma.
What a neat spider! Fascinating behavior!
Wikipedia says "Scytodidae catch their prey by spitting a fluid that congeals on contact into a venomous and sticky mass. Remarkably, though it is produced in venom glands in the chelicerae, the fluid contains both venom and spider silk in liquid form. The venom-impregnated silk not only immobilizes prey such as Silverfish by tying it down, but has a venomous effect as well. In high-speed moving pictures, the spiders can be observed swaying from side to side as they "spit", catching the prey in a crisscrossed "Z" pattern; it is criss-crossed because each of the chelicerae emits half of the pattern. The spider usually strikes from a distance of 10–20 mm and the whole attack sequence is over in a little under 1/700th of a second. After making the capture, the spider will typically bite the prey with venomous effect, and wrap it in the normal spider fashion with silk from the spinnerets."
Spotted on Dec 7, 2013
Submitted on Dec 7, 2013
+1
