Saturday 10 May 2014

Neriene montana under her sheet web

I wanted to photograph this Neriene montana in her retreat, tucked underneath a groove in a plastic toy car. I must have touched the web, as she darted out and sat for a few moments in the middle of her sheet web. They are relatively common in the garden at the moment, and they can be easily distinguished from their relative Linyphia triangularis by their boldly annulated legs. Judging by the large size of her abdomen, thin palps and full size this is an adult female. Contrast with a male, wandering in search of females (below). His palps are like black boxing gloves and his abdomen is about the size of its cephalothorax.

3 comments:

Amatuer EcoGeek said...

What luck! I found one of these girls and have been keeping her to ID. She's been enjoying meal moths and compost flies from the lab. Also found a male on my ceiling, maybe I should have introduced them.

Africa Gomez said...

Thank you for commenting Amatuer EcoGeek, that sounds like fun, I have never thought of keeping spiders as pets, although they are all around the house anyway :-)

Anonymous said...

Yes our house too - I also have one living in my car - has spun a web across the dashboard and as a big softie entomologist I have not had the heart to move her!