Bird Dropping Spider
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Female Bird Dropping Spider with egg sacs
Female Bird Dropping Spider with egg sacs
Female Bird Dropping Spider with egg sacs
It’s quite obvious why this spider (Celaenia excavate) is called the “bird dropping spider” it is of course because that is what it looks like. The spider mimics bird droppings as a means of protection from its predators (birds). It stays motionless in its web during the day and only comes out to hunt at night. It hunts by hanging down from a single silk thread an releasing a pheromone into the night air which mimics the sex smells released by female moths. It captures the male with it’s powerful front legs. The males are much smaller than the females (about 2.5mm as opposed to 12mm). The females have many egg sacs (up to 13) attached together with strong threads. These each carry about 200 eggs.
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