Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Spitting Spider

Scytodes sp., Family: Scytodidae

Description:

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 both immobilizes and envenoms prey such as silverfish. In high-speed footage 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 typically bites the prey with venomous effect, and wraps it in the normal spider fashion with silk from the spinnerets.

Habitat:

Seen at a rain forest

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

2 Comments

Wild Things
Wild Things 6 years ago

Thank you Sergio!

Sergio Monteiro
Sergio Monteiro 6 years ago

Great spotting, Wild Things.

Wild Things
Spotted by
Wild Things

Assam, India

Spotted on Dec 23, 2017
Submitted on Jan 28, 2018

Related Spottings

Spitting Spider Spitting spider - Aranha cuspideira spitting spider Spitting spider

Nearby Spottings

Jumping Spider Spotting Huntsman Spider Wolf Spider
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team