Home Spiders Photo & Other Details
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Photo Details
October 17, 2005, Antelope Island Causeway, Davis County, Utah - ©Nicky Davis Family tree Family: Lycosidae, Genus: unknown, Species: unknown Other These spider have eight dark eyes of unequal size arranged in three rows, the first having four eyes. The abdomen and the cephalothorax are usually as long as wide. The long legs have three microscopic claws at each tip. " Spiders (juveniles of most species,
as well as adults of small species) can travel great distances by a
remarkable form of flight called
ballooning. Ballooning helps spiders to avoid over-crowding and
competition for food. Spiderlings climb to the highest point they can
find. They tilt their abdomen and spinnerets upward as they release
silk. The strand of silk lengthens and is picked up by the breeze and
the spiderlings are pulled upward and travel to a new location on their
long threads of lightweight silk. (Seeing the ultra-thin threads
requires having the light hit them at a particular angle.) Sometimes
they even fly hundreds of miles. Spiders have been captured in special
traps pulled by small planes thousands of feet up in the air and are
often the first animals to arrive in a disturbed habitat (recently
plowed field, burned area). For example, spiders began to colonize the
slopes of Mt. St. Helens only months after the volcanic ash cooled. http://citybugs.tamu.edu/FastSheets/images/spider-ballooning.gif
As all of the mite parasites of spiders I've seen are red (e.g., http://spiders.entomology.wisc.edu/pred_para/mites/index.html
) the white objects may well be larval stages of a parasitic insect
(fly or wasp) (e.g., when a fly larva is fully developed http://spiders.entomology.wisc.edu/pred_para/ectoparasite/index.html"
(J.R.)
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