# One very brave spider



## Burf (Nov 3, 2003)

Well, its a sunday afternoon and i've been revising for a chemistry exam all day. I'm now very bored so what could be better than feeding the spiders in the garden!!!

On a wall in my garden there are loads of big spiders webs, and i've never actually seen the spiders that live in them so i thought i'd tempt them out to have a look. I frabbed a locust and threw it in the biggest web i could see. Immediatly out popped a big, hairy beastie, grabbed the locust and dragged it where i couldnt see it, damn! Time for web 2.

In went the locust and same as last time, out ran another equally nasty spider. this one however, didnt attack. It just ran away again. Just as i was about to remove the locust and try another web i saw a little spider moving towards it. I just thought "haha, as if!!" but i left the locust there and watched.

I can now confirm that however dumb they might look, spiders do have brains! This little guy started wrapping up one of the locusts feet. Poor little guy, he's trying so hard but little does it know that the locust will soon get pissed off and just walk away. But no, the spider then moves onto another foot and wraps it to the first. This continued untill 3 feet were tied together. The locust then started struggling but ended up getting even more tangled up and ended up on its back. That was the end of the poor locust!!


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## Red Eyes (Nov 25, 2003)

Cool pics


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## Gordeez (Sep 21, 2003)

Awesome stuff.
Great pics and great reading








that tiny spider OWNED that big ass locust :laugh:


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## TormenT (Apr 1, 2004)

hahaha niceee


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## psychofish (Jun 5, 2004)

Very cool









Is there any way that you could snap some pics of the 
other spiders you were talkin about?


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## MR.FREEZ (Jan 26, 2004)

:laugh: i had a black widow in my old motor pool we used to throw

bugs into


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## User (May 31, 2004)

Cool pics.


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## oojit (Feb 24, 2005)




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## Burf (Nov 3, 2003)

psychofish21 said:


> Very cool
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I just went out again and snapped a few more pics.

quite a large one:
View attachment 67020


and the remains of the locust taken by yesterdays big spider:


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## Judazzz (Jan 13, 2003)

Burf said:


> I can now confirm that however dumb they might look, spiders do have brains![snapback]1084186[/snapback]​


Actually, some spider species show remarkable signs of "intelligence": there's a family of jumping spiders called _Portia_ that has different yet very clever hunting strategies: one of them stalks its victims, spiders in the middle of their web: first it moves around the web as recon, then it moves to an overlying branch, lowers itself from a single thread of silk, and then attacks its unsuspecting victim from above (it's even capable of snatching away the male during courtship, from right under the female's nose!) Others 'pluck' the web of the victim (sometimes for hours, trying different 'tunes'), playing it like a guitar, mimicking the sound of a trapped insect, waiting to pound on the spider as soon as it comes close.



> *Wily Portia*
> Most spiders are not cannibals, but a few do specialize in eating other spiders. One group of spider-eaters is the genus of jumping spiders called Portia, whose 15 species live in Africa, Asia, and Australia.
> 
> The high level of skill and trickery that Portia uses to lure other spiders into its jaws is startling. "The more you study this spider, the more impressed you get," says Stim Wilcox, an associate professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
> ...


- http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/Zoo...4/3/spiders.cfm

Pretty nifty behaviour for an eightlegged freak with a brain the size of a needle pin









Awesome pictures, btw


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## zygapophysis (Jul 16, 2004)

Sweet pictures.


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