Latrodectus Power

Watch and be in awe at this lol
Hasselti getting supper served fresh

Wow. That was some crazy stuff man. Makes me miss my Black Widow. Mine looked like a wuss compared to that!

Mine too but those are redbacks.. Every bug down under is like supersized, supervenomous and super-out of this world.

I have my doubts though. I think the snake got killed and thrown into the web. Nevertheless, to pull something 20x bigger and a 100x heavier than yourself up via cables...

You got to be one hell of a strong physique for that.

Sorry for my english. I'm trying not to sound like a dork

Maybe interesting trivia here

Down under, they call these red backs, toilet spiders..
I can only imagine why

No worries. Your english is better than most of the people that live in my country. You never call inanimate objects he or she either. We have a Swiss friend that calls cups she and forks he. I had a hard time learning German because of the conjugations. Actually I never did learn it


Black widows will hide in toilets here as well. It's crazy!

Man!

wow thats pretty mental lol

Imagine that in the toilet! It attacks snakes!!! You know.. for men that need to do there business in the small room..

Lol I'm wearing a cup in my underwear if I ever get to visit australie or the US.

Just get a catheter. Problem solved!

Wait up Street, a catheter or a stoma? They get quite fashionable as of lately... Fancy colours too!

Yes. Stoma is the one.

my aunty lives in australia

... and she lives?

You have snakes, spiders, wasps, hell even mammals with poison glands live there...

yeah she lives lol she only been out there about ten years built her own house and everything, i actually asked her last time she was over if she had encountered anything dodgy and she said no lol, just kangeroos hahaha

Crocodile dundee killed the nasties

Just lol




Picture courtesy of DerBrainbug of 'insectennest.de'. Hope it is alright to post here.

Did you know how they trap their prey?

Latrodectus species are relatively small. They don't have the power Tarantulas have.
Because of this they don't go brutal on their prey like our big furry friends do.

Instead, they build a web. A 3D web, no planar fields whatever axis. It seems like a chaos of webbing. In fact it could not be further from the truth.

They build their web in layers. The top layer, where the spider usually resides exists of non sticky, structural thick strands of web. You might call it the fundation and backbone of the entire construct.

They layer below consists of spanners. Some are sticky, some are just woven as reinforcement to hold the mystery behind it all.

They reason why Latrodectus can catch and lift enormous prey (for its size) is because of the construction of the lower web.


It is attached to the ground with strands of very sticky silk. The spider places these strategically out of instinct. The silk is spun between the spanners, and never in a 100% vertical direction, never 100% horizontally either, somewhere in between.
It varies and there is a good reason why.

Namely, those very sticky strands are under tension. It is attached to the ground, just enough to keep it down. Should an insect or lizzard walk by it would stick to the strand and move frantically, breaking the strand's bond to the floor in which in a split of a second the prey will be catapulted of the floor. Since they cannot push themselves off to anything solid, they are weak and size does not matter anymore as long as the silk can lift them.

The spider rushes in and encapsulates the prey with silk, delivers its venom which contains digestive enzymes too and waits. It injects just enough venom to paralyze the prey, not to kill it right away, so it remains fresh (for when the spider gets hungry).

What you actually see when a small spider is lifting huge prey, is all the strand of silk under tension lifting the prey up when the spider chews through their bond to the floor.

I hope it was clear. I didnt know, I'm sure some people around here didn't know either.

thats pretty awesome lucky we are not on there menu lol

They are really quite fascinating to watch. I haven't got any experience with they Australian species, but the ones here find their way into my collection from time to time.

Mactans is just as bad street they even get bigga!

Australia is on the list. Gotta get there before I die, and hopefully not die while I'm there

Its the platipus you got to watch out for!!!!

Yeah, don't want to catch a claw from them! I've never actually seen one in person. Until I do I'm convinced they don't exist. An egg laying mammal with a bird mouth that lives in the water and has venomous claws? C'mon...

I heard they run faster than a Cheetah, fart louder than a skank!

Can leap tall buildings in a single bound!