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Orb-weaver Spider
Neoscona molemensis
15.456, 119.922
Field Notes
Description:
Araneidae; Neoscona; Neoscona molemensis Tikader & Bal, 1981. The spider shown here is sitting in its "retreat". This retreat is a place where it can hide from predators and also make itself less visible to potential prey. It has a silk thread (which acts as a "trip-wire") from its retreat to its Orb Web. If any prey item lands on the Orb Web, its struggles cause the trip-wire to vibrate which alerts the spider. It then rushes onto the web and kills the prey. I could just about make out the trip-wire which went from the retreat on a Cucumber tree to a Citrus sp. just 3 or 4 feet away and disappeared into the foliage where I lost sight of it. So, no photos of the Orb, sorry.
Habitat:
This spider was spotted in our backyard, where it had built its retreat on a leaflet of a Cucumber tree (Averrhoa bilimbi) known in the Philippines as Kamias.
Notes:
I have seen many retreats made by Orb-weaver Spiders and this one is a rather unusual example. The spider has chosen to attach the threads in a "fore-and-aft" orientation (lengthwise on the leaflet). The result, which can be clearly seen, is that the tension of the silk threads has caused the leaf to buckle rather than curve. The retreats that I have seen, prior to this one, have always been tensioned "left-and-right" across the leaf. This method seems to produce not just a more aesthetic result, but a more controllable one (in terms of requiring less tension on the silk threads to achieve a smoother curve). I can't immediately put my hand on a photo of N. molemensis in the more commonly constructed (and in my opinion correct) type of retreat, but there is a good example in - https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/1722862455... This is a spotting of Araneus mitificus. Please look at the last photo. Yes, I know that it is not the same species, but it is an Orb-weaver and, as far as I know, all Orb-weaver retreats are normally constructed in this style.
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