| Spiders | |
Today I observed something very interesting.
I have seldom seen a spider catch prey, but mid-morning today I did.
There is a typical NZ spider on our front porch. Its about a centimeter across. Its web is about 1 sq m in size. Every morning it is perfect, by evening it is a ragged mess.
However, I was able to see the spider catch its dinner today.
It rushed down this web the equivalent of a small suburb in proportion to its size to grab an unsuspecting bug. It bit it, wrapped it then left it.
The spider ran back up its web to what I presume was a safe place, away from birds and other predators bigger that it was.
Tonight, nearly 9 hours later, that spider had dragged the prey to the middle of its web, and was happily eating it.
I was stunned. It remembered where it was in relation to the rest of the web, and leaves and other rubbish collected in its web.
This, to me, is quite a revelation. I for one am very happy that spiders can't grow to the size of dogs, because we would be in very, very serious trouble!
I will put up a photo when my new camera arrives.
This spider is worth documenting.
Here it is... took several attempts, click for full size image.
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| Posted by Karl Rohde on April 6, 2007 at 12:00 am | Life | Trackbacks (0) |
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| Photos - Bah - We want Spider Cam!!!!! | | Posted by Len at 2007-04-24 10:55:09 |
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