1260 - 1262 - Some Spiders from Cue
#1260 - Phryganoporus candidus - Foliage-webbing Social Spider
A small, inconspicuous, spider that builds an extensive communal web in summer to rear its young. By late summer the web is enlarged and added to by her and her hundreds of spiderlings. The web contains a central living area of interconnecting tunnels, surrounded by a communal catching web. And of course their parasites, and smaller animals that feed on the debris.
In late spring, the sub-adult females leave the nest, and are followed later by the males. These spiders then establish solitary webs with a tubular refuge, a small and ratty surrounding web. That’s the one in the photo. At this stage they’ll eat any intruders, with the temporary exception of males when they’re ready to mate.
Phryganoporus candidus is a Desid spider, related to the common Black House Spider Badumna insignis.
On the side of the road, halfway between Cue and Perth
#1261 - Tamopsis sp. - Two-tailed Spider
AKA Long-tailed Bark Spider. A fairly large Hersiliid spider, a few centimeters across, that was sunning himself on a metal pole at dawn, up at Cue. Incredibly conspicuous against the metal, which was not wise of the spider. Hersiliids are usually invisible on bark or stone, and surrounded by radiating silk triplines to alert them of wandering prey.
The family includes some 176 described species, with two in North America north of Mexico, both of them poorly studied: Neotama mexicana in extreme southern Texas and Yabisi habanensis in extreme southern Florida.
Hersiliids capture prey by holding their spinnerets over the prey and rapidly circling and swathing them with silk. Some hersiliids are known to live on tree trunks where they rest on silken mats, frequently camouflaged by mosses and lichens. Other species are known from stone fields, where they build irregular webs under rocks. Camouflaged egg sacs are attached to tree limbs or under rocks.
#1262 - Trapdoor Spider
A small Trapdoor Spider burrow, on the bank of the old railway dam near Cue. As to which species - no idea. There was nobody home, for one thing. The common name covers several families of spiders, including the Idiopidae, Actinopodidae, Ctenizidae, Migidae and Cyrtaucheniidae. They include a wide variety of types, many of which are adapted to drier habitats. And there is a much higher species diversity than researchers expected too, with each species limited to a small native range. That is probably because young trapdoor spiders don’t wander far from their mother’s burrow, before setting up house for themselves.
Trapdoor spiders have a long life span, between 5 to 20 years, and take several years to reach maturity. Females stay in or near their burrows, whereas males leave their burrows once mature, and go in search of a mate.The female will lay her eggs several months after mating, and protects them within her burrow.
When the juveniles have hatched, they remain for several months before dispersing on the ground. Each time the spider molts, it has to widen its burrow and, in those species that add a door to the burrow, add another rim to the door. In undamaged trapdoors, annual concentric rings can be seen.
The doors can be very well camouflaged.