Here she pulls in slack silk above her and to her right. Her movements are very fast. Just makes one wonder about the intelligence / synapse of this spider compared with us. |
Watch the white puff of silk to the right of her 1st leg. She will ratchet in slack silk, pulling the white puff toward her. Watch as she pulls in silk with her 1st legs, hands it off to her 2nd legs for rolling up into a ball. |
From Youtube
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Today made all the waiting worth it. I returned to my spider place looking for the Miagrammopes I found last Sunday. At first, I found little evidence she was still there. While looking though, I noticed a curled leaf, a usual sign that a spider lives inside the leaf. Opening it revealed a small jumping spider (Phintella vittata) who quickly raced for the back door and hid under the leaf. I had my camera and tripod set up, and managed to catch a few shots of her hiding
From the side
Her eyes
Another view from the side
and her face
Then I saw a bit of action from the corner of my eye. It was another Miagrammopes working on her single strand
She had caught a small fly or something - to the right
I set up my video camera, watched and nothing for the next 20 min - so I wandered off and found my favorite flower
Then a small caterpiller hanging by a thread
Another view
Then back to Miogrammopes
From above
Here is the tangle ball of silk
Here is a frame from the video above - as she was removing slack from her strands
C. Frank Starmer