It imports air to the house in little bubbles that stick to its hairy body, and then releases them into the underwater air bell, where it lives between its aquatic bug-catching forays. Most of our touring spiders have no worries. Securely protected from predators in their little glass vials, they while away the day spinning webs in their see-through homes and awaiting the next catered meal from Vlad, their maitre d'. Which explains why our own little Papillon is on the loose in the Land Cruiser, making a valiant leap to freedom. The dewdrop spider squirts a translucent escape line and uses the air conditioner draft to take flight, soaring 3 feet from the dashboard to the top of the driver's seat, fairly close to Paul's head.
Nobody notices the silver-abdomened fugitive until the afternoon sun betrays it's silky flight path.
The kleptoparasitic dewdrop spider is so petite that it normally stays on the fringes of the big orb weaver's web, a mere gnat to the larger spider. In truth, it's more like a little hyena, stealing the larger spider's leftovers, then showing its appreciation by eating its host's silk-wrapped eggs. For fight or flight, spider silk is among the most versatile substances in the animal world. They fly on silk. Under the bark of a eucalyptus I find a fibrous spider sac, and gently tugging its corner, I expect to scare out a big spider.