| |
FAMILY ARANEIDAE
This page contains pictures and information about Leaf Curling Spiders that
we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 12mm
-
- Leaf Curling Spiders are easily
found in open bushland in Brisbane. We saw many of them in
late summer. The female spider build the retreat and egg-sac by
curling dry leaf. It usually hangs from a twig near the web. Male spider
is a little smaller than the female.
-
-
-
- The spider seldom goes outside their leaf retreat unless a prey fall on its web,
or it has to repair or re-build its web. The spider usually re-build its web
at night.
-
-
-
- When outside its retreat, the spider is in high alert. It will rush
back even if there is a minor disturb. The spider has brown legs and brown
thorax. Its abdomen is white in colour with dark patterns.
-
-
-
- Although most of the Leaf Curling Spiders build their retreat with dry
leaf, usually dry gum leaf. Sometime we found them build retreat with newly
dropped fresh green leaf.
-
-
-
-
-
- This species was in family
Araneidae (formerly Argiopidae), Then it was
put in family Nephilidae
and then put in Tetragnathidae.
Very confusing? Yes, We think so too. Now it was put back in family
Araneidae.
-
Male
-
-
- We found this male spider in Karawatha Forest on Dec 2007. From the patterns
on its abdomen, we guessed it might be the Bush Orb Weaver male. The spider was resting on a leaf. After we took a few photos, the spider
started for "Kiting". A few
seconds later, it escaped along the kiting silk.
-
-
-
The Leaf Curling Spider web
-
-
- The Leaf Curling Spiders build vertical fan-shaped web, or half of a orb
web, usually 0.5 meter in diameter, one meter above the ground.
-
-
-
- They always build a retreat on the
upper side of their web. Usually they build the retreat by a dry leaf. They
stay inside their retreat, put their forelegs on their web and sense if any
prey come into their web. If disturbed, they quickly hide inside the
retreat.
-
- The dry leaf retreats and webs shown about could be belong to another
species, the Leaf Roller Spider, which
also build the similar web and retreat.
-
Snail Shell as Retreat
- Peter Newnam in Sydney found a Leaf Curling Spider that made its retreat
using snail shell instead of dry curled leaf.
-
-
- Photos thank to Peter Newnam
-
- It is easily understood that the spider may miss-judge the snail shell as
dry curled leaf. Peter Newnam and his wife also suggested that the spider
was in the tee-tree bushes where the dry leaves on ground were only the
small tea-tree leaves. The snail shell could be the only suitable
materials.
-
- We wondered how the spider lifted the snail shell up
onto its web. The snail shell seems too heavy for the spider.
-
- We used to think that Leaf Curling Spider uses fallen leaves which
dropped and attached onto the spider web for nesting. From the snail shell
clue, it is reasonable to believe that the spider chooses suitable materials
from ground, usually dry leaf and rarely snail shell, then lift it up onto
its web and makes the retreat.
-
- Reference:
- 1. Leaf-curler
- The
Find-a-spider Guide for Australian Spiders, University of Southern
Queensland, 2007.
- 2. A Guide to Australian Spiders - Densey Clyne, Melbourne, Nelson
1969, p70.
- 3. Australian Spiders in colour - Ramon Mascord, Reed Books Pty
Ltd, 1970, p70.
- 4. Species
Phonognatha graeffei (Keyserling, 1865) - Australian Faunal Directory, Australian Biological Resources Study.
- 5. Sexual
cohabitation as mate-guarding in the leaf-curling spider Phonognatha
graeffei Keyserling (Araneoidea, Araneae) - Babette F. Fahey á Mark A. Elgar, Behav Ecol Sociobiol (1997) 40: 127±133, 1996.
- 6. Phonognatha graeffei Leaf Curling Spider
- Save Our Waterways Now.
-
- Back to top.
[ Up ] [ Scorpion-tailed Spider ] [ Leaf Curling Spider ] [ Mess Leaf Curling Spider ] [ Green Leaf Curling Spider ] [ Tree-stump Spider ] [ Gall-mimicking Spider ] [ Two-spined Spider ] [ Jewel Spider ] [ Four-spined jewel spider ] [ Bird-dropping Spider ] | |
 
|