Talk:Spider/Archive 1

message: Contributor Pollinator put a picture of a jumping spider into the wolf spider article, and asked whether that was where it belonged. I moved it to the talk page for the wolf spider article. It's clearly a jumping spider. Can anyone identify which kind it actually is? (It's just a trifle out of focus, a side view. I think it may be my favorite kind of jumping spider, but I can't see the pattern on its back.) 
Here it is on the right:
 
 
Not a Wolf spider, but a jumping spiderHemingway, South Carolina
 
P0M 01:39, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unidentified jumping spider 

message: Anyone know what this spider on the left is? I spotted it in Indonesia, it's leg-span was about one and a half times the size of my (large) hand. Thanks, Mark Richards 04:29, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It could have been, I didn't measure, but that seems about right, perhaps a little smaller. Thanks! BTW I have a higher res if it's any help. Mark Richards 06:23, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: Thanks - it looks like a lot of them, but not close enough that I'd want to say for sure - shame - I was hoping to post it somewhere here - ah well, will keep looking! Mark Richards 22:41, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Unidentified Indonesian spider?

message: § An unidentified user inserted an assertion to the effect that there are no spiders in Great Britain capable of biting human beings. Whenever somebody says "never" s/he assumes an incredible burden of proof. So I reverted the article and then found a very good list of spiders that have been identified as native to Great Britain and added that at the bottom of the article. One can very easily establish whether any spiders known to be "problem biters" are on that list. It is another thing to say that any kind of spider never bites people. It is often difficult to know whether something that falls on your neck in the garden and bites you was a spider or something else, so spiders can get blamed for other kinds of bites and vice-versa. The American spider researcher, McCook tried all his life to get spiders to bite him, but only succeeded  one time. (Crompton, Life of the Spider, p. 101) That does not mean that spiders cannot bite, just that many of them  are disinclined to bite and will bite only under very special circumstances. P0M 21:11, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, of course, and your new edit is more appropriate. There are various UK spiders which are alleged to bite, but very few actual proven cases of one doing so effectively - although plenty of accusations. Another candidate is Dysdera crocata which is occasionally described as biting in literature referring to other countries, but never, to my knowledge, so described in the UK, despite wide distribution. Steatoda nobilis is naturalised in S England, and is known to bite, see This slightly sensationalist BBC news story Naturenet 08:54, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A recent reversion 

message: How do spiders interact with each other? I didn't see this covered in the article, but I was wondering about this, after observing spiders in a tunnel. The tunnel gets cleaned out regularly, but afterwards the prime spot next to the light is always grabbed by a big spider. I've never seen spiders having a fight. Do they ever do this? Do they ever go on another spider's web? Are they territorial? -- Nojer2 08:00, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's probably too in-depth to put into the article but most spiders are not territorial in the sense that vertebrates often are. There are spiders that live together and co-operate, but these are unusual. The large majority are quite independent. Spiders certainly do fight, and indeed W. S. Bristowe in 'The World of Spiders' asserts that "the main food of spiders is... spiders". This aggressive tendency might cause some quasi-territorial behaviour in that spiders would tend to fight if they met each other, so they might by default spread themselves out over the available space. Some spiders specialise in taking prey from other spiders webs, or even attacking other spiders and taking over their webs. Naturenet 09:12, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question: Are spiders territorial? 

message: I found a very reputable site, the Entomology Department at UCR, that evaluates the dangers of various kinds of spider venom. It points to the dangers of black widows, and then stresses that the widow spiders only bite as a last resort. It accurately points to the kind of damage that can occur from the brown recluse spiders, mentions the other spiders that produce more than temporary discomfort, and notes the few venomous spiders that do bite with little provocation.  The site I swapped out has pictures of alleged jumping spider bite lesions. They admit that jumping spiders are the supposed culprits. The bites show the kind of necrosis that occurs with brown recluse bites. Having been painfully bitten a couple of times by jumping spiders I can testify that those bites didn't even leave a visible bite mark. The sensation and the appearance of the bite was pretty much what one would expect from a bee sting. None of the researchers on the salticidae that I have read have suggested anything more than the occasional defensive bite, and none have suggested more than a period of discomfort resulting from the bites.  So rather than risk encouraging needless fear, I have removed the link to that site.  P0M 09:10, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  swapped out one external link 

message: Hi, this is a pretty awesome picture of a spider that I took at the Maya ruins of Bonampak in Chiapas, Mexico.  With the hairs on her? leg, and the spots on her back, she just looks menacing.  I don't know what type of spider it is, but I think it's a cool enough picture that it could be used to good effect in this article.  A wikimedia commons category should probably be started on spiders.  In any case, does anyone know what type of spider this is?  The body was probably about 2 inches long, with a legspan of maybe 6-8 inches.
Let me know at my talk page if anyone adds this picture to any articles.
--Jacobolus 03:24, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unidentified Spider Picture 

message: Anyone with expertise in this area, please check the article. An anonymous contributor has added a great deal. The information may be entirely legitimate, but it is so strongly at odds with what has been known about this kind of spider up to now that it bears some double-checking. P0M 15:56, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Brazilian wandering spider]] article -- major modifications 

message: I have photographed some very interesting spiders that life communally at the tip top of trees that reach up to second-story level. It ordinarily would be difficult to observe these spiders, which may be why I have been unable to identify them.  Here are two photos. Can anyone make at least a genus identification?
ventral view
They are tiny, the close-up was made at 60x and the full-body shot was made at 10x. The body of the spider is approximately 1 mm. long.  P0M 04:28, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New pictures, but what is the genus and species 

message: A recent New Scientist article mentioned social spiders, that build collective hunting blinds.  This would be an interesting tidbit to add to the article, if someone had more info on the subject.--Joel 00:07, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social spiders? 

message: Hello, I'd like to upload an image of a spider I made, but I do not know the species yet. I found this about 2 cm small animal in a forest in Germany. Any help would be greatly appreciated. -- Aka 10:47, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spider species 

message: I notice that Theridiosomatidae is missing from the list of families. Is there a reason for this other than it being an oversight? Or is my list out-of-date? Pcb21| Pete 13:27, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Theridiosomatidae]] - missing from families list

message: Does anybody recognize this beautiful 4mm. of spider? I thought she couldn't climb the glass of the large vase I put her in, but she managed to get out somehow, so I never got a very satisfactory picture of her eyes. Anyway, she is quite attractive. I haven't found a close match for her although I have my own guess as to genus.
Thanks. P0M 22:26, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mystery spider 

message: I've always found these spiders interesting because they're nocturnal; when night comes and I walk by a spot one has chosen for its web, I check to see if it's come out yet, or if it's doing anything interesting.
Last night when I first checked, I saw only a web; this struck me as odd because the spider usually eats up her web every morning and leaves no great trace of it.  I thought maybe some predator had gotten her, but she eventually showed.  A little later as I was walking by I noticed another slightly smaller spider attached to her in a serious love embrace. :p
So, basically I'm thinking the female eats her web every morning until she's ready to mate, then she leaves it out as a sign to the male.  The male finds it, waits for her to show, then gets down to business.  In the case of last night it seemed like the male barely touched her web - I only saw him go, not come, but it seemed like he just dangled down from above right onto her.  The female cantilevered out from the web holding on with only her front legs - the male's clasping combined with the strand he hung from apparently making the situation stable.  When the deed was done the male let go suddenly and just hung rather still dangling in the air, looking rather exhausted.  The female cleaned herself up and got back to sitting in the center of her web, and eventually the male went back up his line to get some rest.
Can anyone confirm any of this behavior as commonplace, or was it just coincidence that she left her web standing and that he seemed to stay off her web, etc.? ¦ Reisio 15:51, 2005 August 19 (UTC)
:I don't know what is normal for that kind of spider. The accounts that I have seen for spiral web weavers is that the male approaches the edge of the web and then "drums" by plucking on a fiber of the web. This is apparently a species-specific recognition system of some kind. So it is clear that the web must be up in order for mating to occur. Maybe the male spider happened by, started drumming, and that interrupted the web take-down.  Some spiders have differences between the chelicerae of the males and the females. The male chelicerae have notches or grooves that are specifically suited to grasping the chelicerae/fangs of the female. That is one way to keep her from biting him until he has finished mating. It seems that the dangle-down method is pretty good that way too. If she's holding onto the web with her frontmost legs then she can't very well grab him without letting go and falling away from him.  Somebody should establish an archive for observations of this kind. My impression is that the tradition of the old naturalists like Fabre of learning about the behavior of spiders has largely been forgotten. One interesting question is just how a male spider ever finds a female spider. There might be a pheromone involved, or there might be a high-frequency or ultra-low-frequency sound involved. Maybe the web serves a wind-harp that vibrates at some frequency that humans can't pick up.  I have a 3 acre pasture and one year there was one St. Andrew's Cross apider in a fence row.  How would a male spider find the single female spider on 3 acres (or more, who knows where the next female made her web).  P0M 19:08, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Barn Spider (Araneus cavaticus) behavior 

message: Since the page is locked please add the interwiki link to the ido version (io:Araneo).
:done P0M 02:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  io link 

message: This page, like many bug-related pages, links to abdomen, which is an article about the human abdomen.  We desperately need, and don't seem to have, an article about arthropod abdomens.  I thought perhaps one of the people who watches this site would be willing to write at least a stub.  Thanks.  Chick Bowen 03:18, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  abdomen 

message: I've heard spiders are blue-blooded; this article denies it's actually blood, but I wonder, does the color & what produces it (haemocyanin, I think), merit mention?  Trekphiler 23:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe he was thinking of sea spiders? Gdr 00:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Apparently it was some sort of tarantula. Any help to anyone?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vimescarrot (talk • contribs) 20:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blue blooded =

message: My friend said to me that he heard spiders aren't actually arachnids. Laughable, I know, but has anyone else heard this, and could they tell me where from?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vimescarrot (talk • contribs) 22:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe he was thinking of sea spiders? Gdr 00:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Apparently it was some sort of tarantula. Any help to anyone?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vimescarrot (talk • contribs) 20:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not arachnids?