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Nursery-web Spider

Pisaura mirabilis

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41.5514, -8.42305

Field Notes

Description:

The nursery web spider Pisaura mirabilis is a spider species of the family Pisauridae.
Males of this species offer food gifts to potential female mates. Some Pisaura mirabilis have also been observed to feign death, remaining still while holding the food gift in their mouths. When the female approaches and tries to take the food away, the male springs back to life and attempts to mate. The strategy of playing dead more than doubles a male's odds of successfully achieving copulation, from 40% to 89%.This is an example of a behavior originally evolved to ward off predators being adapted to a new purpose.
The male is between 10–13 mm, while the female is 12–15 mm

Notes:

spotted in my backyard

Species ID Suggestions

Nursery-web Spider

Pisaura mirabilis

Comments (7)

Pisauridae seems like a good bet. It has the abdomen with the similar shape as the Lynx spider but the legs and other things are significantly different. I wasn't sure of Dolomedes
I am thinking maybe Pisauridae, Nursery Web Spider. Dolomedes is a genus found in this family, but I'm not so sure it is from that genus.
make sure you do not swallow it along with your drink!
Yep i think mauna have reason on the id,i'am trieing to change my spotting search focus,from fungi to the everything "mode" :-) i haved before,i'am missing fungi,during months i haved allways some thing diferent to find,from the spotter point of vue was very cool :-)
Yup,Antonio! That was my first thought like Mauna. Lynx Spider!! The shape of the abdomen is suggestive.
looks like a wolf spider or better "Dolomedes" the fishing spider but that is a Euro species
António, maybe it's a lynx spider (family Oxyopidae)?

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