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Eriovixia laglaizei
Eriovixia sp. There are 6 Eriovixia spp. in the Philippines (according to Wikipedia) and over the years I have accumulated pictures of some of them. There are of course differences between these several species, also many close similarities. I get in a muddle when I try to sort them out. So I will not attempt a description here, in fear of passing on my own confusion. There are some nice pictures at: http://www.natureloveyou.sg/Minibeast-Sp... but I am not 100% certain that they are all correctly identified. For me this is a minefield. Please just look and reach your own conclusions.
The Eriovixia sp. shown above was climbing around on various plants in a corner of our garden So not much useful info. there, but nearly all of the other specimens in my collection have been spotted making webs or hanging on silk strands on Mahogany trees in our back yard. I know that spiders don't have "host plants" in that they do not eat plant material, but these spiders are apparently attracted to Mahogany, I find myself wondering if there is some insect which does have this kind of tree as a host. Is it possible that the spiders are after that particular inhabitant of the Mahogany?
Much of the above is now irrelevant. Because of a great deal of help from Mark Ridgeway and a little more checking through my own records, I am sure that the spider shown here is Eriovixia laglaizei Simon, 1877. I have left my original narrative, rather than just deleting or editing it. I hope it might illustrate the mess you can get into if you don't ask for help sooner. I have only recently joined Project Noah, but the help I have received from several others has made a great difference. My message to other amateurs like me would be "Don't be shy. Just ask for some help"
Spotted on Nov 4, 2021
Submitted on Apr 26, 2022
7 Comments
Glad you got it fixed John.
Mark Ridgway, You are a perfect gentleman. Thank you! The 6 Drafts, that were annoying me so much, all appeared amongst the thumbnails on my spottings page today. So I checked and found that I had indeed replaced them all. So I simply cancelled them using the edit feature. I know that it must have been you who sorted this all out for me. So thank you once again. Now I can get on with some more spottings. John B.
Hi Mark, thanks again. the one that was positively identified for me as mentioned in my spotting was E. laglaisei. So you are spot on. However I have so many specimens, with tails and they seem to have different colours and markings. The main reason I have been struggling with many identifications is that there is a diabolical WiFi signal here. However, some months back an internet communications company ran some fibre optic cable through our village and I signed up for a connection. They even put a hub right outside my house. But then they had some difficulty making a connection to their main cable, which involved putting cabling across a wide river. It took them 4 months to overcome the problem and I was just informed that the system will be activated in the next 2 weeks. Can I please ask you about "drafts". I have 66 spottings, but under my account picture it says I have 72. I know that, on 6 occasions, the WiFi completely collapsed and I lost the spotting I was working on - obviously these became 6 drafts. I have been told that when I open my spottings page the drafts will be displayed amongst all the other thumbnails. This is not happening. So I cannot complete these drafts into spottings and the total is wrong. Help please? Regards, John B.
I just checked other photos of Eriovixia on INaturalist and it seems one species in particular has this 'tail'.
Also allowing for the incredible diversity of pattern and form I think it's very likely to be Laglaise's Garden Spider (Eriovixia laglaizei)
Check out the species here... https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/602943-...
Hey John no obligation at all. As a ranger it's my job to enjoy your work. ;-)
Hi Mark, thanks for your comment. I have had a look at some of your spottings and they are just amazing. I hope to make some comments and maybe ask some questions when I am a little better organised, if that's O.K. John B.
Great spotting John.
And that must be the cutest tail ever on a spider.