A new and rare species of “giant” orb web spider has been discovered in Africa and Madagascar. In the journal Plos One, researchers describe Nephila komaci as the largest web spinning spider known to science. Only the females of this groups of species are giants, with a leg span of up to 12cm (4.7in); the male spiders are tiny by comparison. Scientists say the female spiders are capable of spinning webs that reach up to 1m (3ft 3in) in diameter.

“Around 40 or 50 spider species have been documented drinking nectar, but this is the first case where a spider has been shown to survive on plant matter,” says Ken Whitney of Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Christopher Meehan at the University of Arizona in Tucson and colleagues conducted stable-isotope analyses of the spider's body tissue. 15N:14N ratios betray diet type – with low ratios suggesting a vegetarian – while 13C:12C ratios can be used to identify the source of a creature's food.

via Vegetarian spider is Gandhi of arachnids – life – 12 October 2009 – New Scientist.

To produce this unique golden cloth, 70 people spent four years collecting golden orb spiders from telephone poles in Madagascar, while another dozen workers carefully extracted about 80 feet of silk filament from each of the arachnids. The resulting 11-foot by 4-foot textile is the only large piece of cloth made from natural spider silk existing in the world today

Link

Experimental Evidence for the Amelioration of Shadow Competition in an Orb-Web Spider Through the ‘Ricochet’ Effect
Dinesh Rao
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Abstract
Stationary predators such as spiders can face competition from conspecifics simply by virtue of the spatial positioning of their webs. Shadow competition, wherein a predator ‘upstream’ restricts access to prey for another individual further ‘downstream’, can affect the foraging success of stationary predators. However, in spiders that build orb-webs in proximity to each other, insect prey often ‘ricochet’ off the outer web and land on the inner web. In this study, I asked whether the negative effect of shadow competition could be compensated for by the ricochet effect. I experimentally show that despite a strong spatial advantage to a spider on the outer side in terms of prey interceptions, the likelihood of prey intercepting the inner web is increased through the ricochet effect. I also show that the degree of overlap between the webs significantly influences both the number of prey intercepted as well as the number of ricochets. This study shows experimentally that a spider that builds its web close to a conspecific’s web suffers very little cost in terms of lost prey interception.

SPIDER silk is already one of the toughest fibres known, and now it can be made even more resilient with an injection of metal. By infiltrating the protein structure of the silk, the metal makes each strand 10 times as hard to snap.

via New Scientist.

Members of SpiderIndia Group have posted the Best Spider Photographs taken by them in 2008. So here the collection of those Best Spider Photographs of India.

via DiversityIndia: SpiderIndia : Photo of the Year 2008.

Don’t miss the one about the only temple dedicated to spiders!

A very nice illustration of the social spider Eresus. Most spiders are solitary, but a few of them live in large groups. These spiders are not social like insects such as ants or bees are social, but they do show co-operative hunting and broodcare.

BibliOdyssey had a wonderful post a few days back about this book called the Monograph of Spiders, written by Carl Hahn

Monographie der Spinnen’ was the first ever German monograph on spiders and one of the earliest publications anywhere devoted solely to spiders. Hahn provided the original descriptions of a number of previously unknown spider species together with accurate illustrations, so the work is regarded not only as an important historical scientific document, but is still cited today as a primary source in the field of arachnology.

Said Peter: “As part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture year, the French group La Machine were commissioned to create a large piece of street theatre, on the scale of their earlier work, the Sultan's Elephant. Many were expecting to see something using the iconic Liverbirds, the symbol of the city but instead we got a spider. The total cost of the event was £1.8 million and caused some complaints about how the funds could better be used. It also attracted protests from arachnophobe groups about how it would terrify some people.

via La Princesse in Liverpool – The Big Picture – Boston.com.

I just started work on Nephila and now I’m wondering if I’ve been feeding them the wrong type of prey. Maybe they do prefer small birds. I should go trap some hummingbirds…

Stingless bee response to spider webs is dependent on the context of encounter.