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Early Morning Photos - a bit fuzzy because of the
motion of the web in the morning breeze
The spiny, crab or jewel spider ( Gasteracantha cancriformis )
has turned out to
be a very interesting spider. She looks like a small crab with 6
red spikes. She is quite small (about 1 cm) and she is either weaving
or simply hanging around, I guess, waiting for something interesting to happen. The web, angled at about 45 degrees, seems not very optimal for catching small
insects, and is readily distorted with gentle breezes. Almost impossible to
take a well focused photo due to the continuous motion of the web. The
web is also interesting in that there are 3-4 cm lenghts of heavy silk,
spaced in a pattern - so that you see a full web with these regions of
thick white silk - perhaps as a signal for larger flying food to avoid the
web, as it would surely be destroyed.
(click each image for the full presentation):
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Note the distortion of the web due to the Masha's weight. Not a very tight
weave. A spiny spider does not weave a tight web and so her weight
as she weaves, makes very interesting patterns. See the pattern of the
circumferential segments?
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Another presentation of the web and her weaving. Here I think she is
reinforcing a radial fiber.
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Her web
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Playing the web like a harp
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Spinning - note the silk being extruded from her spinneret
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Another view of her spinneret
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Her body as a silhouette
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Her spines (6, but one is hidden)
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Making music on her harp
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I'm not sure what she is doing here
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Afternoon photos
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This illustrates the size scale - a 1 cm spider with a 1 meter web
Click on the image to see the full presentation.
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Weaving again - better focus
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A web in disrepair. I suspect in the morning, she will weave new segments
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Illustrating the web with a low intensity flash (finger covered half the flash)
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Highlighting the horns with a low intensity flash
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