![]() ![]() ![]() Some of the species are quite beautifully patterned compared to the plain-looking Deinopis, and there are even green-colored species! You can find some photos of Menneus spiders at the bottom of this page. The genus contains only a handful of species, distributed mainly in Australia, but with some representation in Africa. However, they spin a catch net and use the same strategy for hunting prey. These spiders are much smaller than Deinopis and they lack the large median eyes, therefore they are not true ogre-faced spiders. It makes me wonder how long the spider must wait in the wild until it is able to catch a meal.Īlso worth mentioning is genus Menneus from the same family. Even though feeding the spider in an artificial environment means we had more control, it was really difficult. Many times the prey crickets tried to hide, and occasionally the spider would respond to them but miss. It took us many attempts to get decent footage of the hunting behaviour. I enlisted Daniel Kwan, one of my colleagues at the museum who has more videography experience, and we set out to produce a short movie. I had to find a way to record it on video for people to see. One day I decided to toss a cricket close to it before leaving the exhibit area and within a spilt second the spider responded and caught it! I was in awe. For several weeks I tried to get a glimpse of it feeding but without success. So you can imagine my excitement when I realized I was going to work with one of the species, Deinopis spinosa, while it is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum’s “Spiders: Fear & Fascination” exhibition. In fact, in all my trips to Latin America I have encountered these spiders many times, but only once I was able to see the spider hunting… and totally missing the prey insect. It is relatively difficult to witness this behaviour in the field, mainly because by observing at night we add another component to the equation – light. ![]() Net-casting spider (Deinopis sp.) from Honduras The silk constructing the net is not sticky but extremely fuzzy and flexible, thanks to a special comb-like structure on the spider’s legs that stretches and frizzle the silk as it is coming out of the spider’s spinnerets. Instead they make a rather small hand-net, a handkerchief if you wish, that they use to catch insects passing nearby. While somewhat close to other weavers, ogre-faced spiders do not construct a fixed web to trap their prey. This allow the spiders to track subtle movements in complete darkness during their activity hours, something that is essential for their unique hunting strategy. Instead, a light sensitive membrane is formed inside the eyes every night, and then gets broken down at dawn. These median eyes are extremely sensitive to light, despite lacking any reflective tissue behind the lenses. I did my best trying to capture the stone-cold expression on a Deinopis spinosa face, but also check out Michael Doe’s amazing work with the Australian species D. The big eyes are what gave these spiders their common name, and they are so big that it is easy to miss the other six eyes on the spider’s head. Staring straight into your wretched soul. A closer look at the median eyes of a net-casting spider (Deinopis spinosa). ![]()
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