Jumping spiders are right up there as one of the top predators among arthropods. If at all a comparison of sorts is needed, I think it would be safe to say that they are the ‘Tigers’ in the world of arthropods. They don’t build webs to capture their prey. Majority of the jumping spiders don’t lie in wait for the unsuspecting prey to come by. Instead, they actively go looking for one....
The members of the ‘Tetragnathidae’ family of spiders are commonly known as the long jawed spiders. Called so because of their relatively longer mouth parts or more specifically called ‘chelicerae’, or the fangs. The other thing that distinguishes them is their first pair of legs being much longer than their second pair. These are orb-weaver spiders, building small to medium sized webs, generally suspended horizontally or at an inclination, above or close to water....
Spiders are fascinating creatures to observe. Among all the arthropods, they, along with the praying mantises, seem to have an uncanny ability to, in a way, interact with their observer. When you look at them, they look straight back at you, as if trying to communicate something in a very subtle way. On and off, for a few months now, have been observing this beautiful, colorful spider and was fascinated to see most part of its life cycle unfold before me !...
Sexual dimorphism is a concept where-in the males and the females of the same species show vast differences in terms of their size, color or behavior. One such unmistakable example of size based dimorphism is amongst a group of spiders known as the orb-weaver spiders. There are many species of these orb-weavers and all of them seem to exhibit this morphological difference in quite a dramatic way. The males seem to be less than one-tenth the size of a female, looking more like her meal....