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Spotting

Description:

Found in our garden in Durban on the leaves of an Epiphyllum plant. At first sight looked like a new bud forming on the plant, until it moved! (Must have legs that fold underneath the body). It was partly covered with the thick white milky, sticky substance as seen in the photo. I guess it extracts it from the Epiphyllum plant, as there was damage to the plant flesh. It was well camouflaged, being the same colour as the plant. It was about 1.75 to 2.25cm across, had a hard outer skin (crustacean-like exoskeleton?), not soft bodied at all, and quite flat. Unfortunately, I did not inspect it fully and cannot recall what it looked like underneath. (Also had trouble trying to get a close-up photo that was in focus using my brand new Canon camera which I had not learnt to use yet! Sorry!)

Habitat:

In a Sub-tropical coastal forest/bush garden, on an Epiphyllum plant (Orchid Cactus).

Notes:

Possibly a bird dung (dropping) crab spider? The last picture shows the plant on which it was found. My suggestions to look so far have been Cyrtarachninae and Phrynarachne but I have got nowhere so far!

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1 Comment

Leuba Ridgway
Leuba Ridgway 9 years ago

Definitely looks like one ! very nice !! Great photos and information. Thanks Mike.

MikeJackson2
Spotted by
MikeJackson2

Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Spotted on Dec 14, 2013
Submitted on Sep 24, 2014

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