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Pear-shaped Leucauge Spider
Leucauge fastigata
15.4559, 119.92
Field Notes
Description:
Tetragnathidae; Leucauginae; Leucauge fastigata (Simon, 1877). The web of this spider was about 7 to 8 ft. above the ground and it was closer to horizontal than vertical, perhaps on a slope of about 25 to 30 degrees. It was supported by fairly lengthy mooring lines, between a Mango tree and a hedge (see Habitat). There was a gentle breeze blowing and it caused the web to behave rather like a slow-motion trampoline, but the spider seemed unaffected by the turbulence and carried on with whatever it was doing. It was well shaded, by the Mango tree, where I crouched under the web to take some photos, but there were some chinks in the foliage which let bright sunshine through, here and there. The result was that a few of my photos show the spider and the silk strands of the web, just about well enough to see what was going on, but I did not realise until I checked my pictures, at home, that I had been lucky enough to get a glimpse of this beautiful spider building (or repairing) its web.
Habitat:
This Pear-shaped Leucauge spider was spotted in the farm, at the edge of a rice field adjacent to the road. There is a cyclone fence, running along the roadside, on which numerous wild vines and leafy plants have established themselves to form a kind of hedge. Between the hedge and the rice field, there is a narrow strip of land with a few Mango trees (Mangifera indica Linn.). The web of this spider was moored between the lower limbs of one of these Mangos and the hedge.
Notes:
The first 5 photos shown here were taken on Sep 5, 2017 (as you can see from the spotting date) and the last one was taken on the following day when I returned to take another look at the spider. I mention this because there appears to be a superficial difference in the last photo. Wikipedia states that a characteristic of Leucauge spiders is the rows of curved hairs on the hind legs. These hairs can be seen in the first five photos (they look almost like feathers), but not in the last one. Is it possible that the hairs are closed up against the legs when the spider is calm, but are opened and displayed if the spider feels threatened or just when it is rushing around, fixing its web? Another interesting point about this spider is its “hub” (the centre of its web). Most of the spiders, that I am familiar with, create hubs which are well laced with silk threads, but this spider has what Wiki calls an open hub (it is basically just a hole). That makes me think about “shuttling”. For example, if an Argiope spider sees a predatory Spider Wasp approaching, it has to get off the hub and squeeze through the radials (spokes) and hide at the other side of its web (it does this with great speed). However, it seems that if the Leucauge spider sees a predator, it can just take a step backwards and it is already on the other side of it web, potentially a much faster shuttle. Finally, you can see in Pictures 1, 2 and 3 what appears to be a small white wad of silk, at the hub. In Picture 4, the wad of silk is gone. My notes, made at the time, tell me that, because of the “trampoline” motion of the web, I did not get a picture of the spider eating the wad of silk. What probably happened, was that the spider captured and wrapped a prey insect. Then, when it was dead, ate it and left the empty wrapper (the wad of silk) at the hub, before starting to renovate its web. When the long task was finished (it takes around 1 to 1.5 hours to rebuild a web), there was a ready-made snack waiting to be eaten, a delicious wad of silk.
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