![]() ![]() The male moves in with the female when she is young and once she is mature he will mate with her. Unusually for spiders, males and female leaf-curling spiders form pairs and share a leaf retreat. These spiders have interesting family arrangements. The spiders will spend most of their time in their retreat, only venturing out to get food in the day, or to repair and rebuild their webs (usually at night).Īre there eggs or baby spiders inside the curled leaves? They can even handle prey quite a bit bigger than them. Like most other orb-weaving spiders, leaf-curling spiders are not fussy and will eat any insect that happens to get tangled in their web, such as flies, bees, moths and butterflies. ![]() That way, the spider can sense any vibrations caused by an insect trapped in its web – and nip out to grab the food. The spider can sit safely in their retreat, while keeping their front legs extended and in contact with their orb web. They also shield the spider from parasitic wasps, which lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts. The curled leaves – or bits of paper – protect the spider from hungry predators, such as birds. Young spiders, which aren’t as strong as adults, start by curling up small, fresh green leaves for their retreats and move on to bigger dry leaves as they get older. If they can’t find a suitable leaf, they might use other objects such as snail shells and pieces of paper. They weave this curled leaf into the web using more silk. Using their legs, they then carefully curl it up and secure it with silk in a funnel or cone shape. To make their leafy retreats, these spiders use silk to lift a leaf up from the ground and into their orb web.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |