I had a moment stuck away from home with nothing to do, and this interesting little spider was hanging in a dark corner outside the front door...
I looked up the beast. This is apparently a "cellar spider", family Pholcidae, perhaps genus Pholcus. They are also called "daddy-long-legs spiders", not to be confused with Harvestmen which are also called "daddy-long-legs" but are not spiders.
The eyes of these spiders are organized as two groups of three (one group on each side of the carapace), plus a smaller median pair, black in this picture. Judging from these shots, the inner eye of each group of three seems to be strongly retroreflective -- perhaps a different angle would show that all the eyes have the same feature.
Their webs are not adhesive, but instead have a very fine irregular structure that mechanically traps prey. I could not even see the web, but when I tried to reach the spider by probing at it, clearly there was web at least a half-inch around the beast.
Wikipedia has a good article about these spiders.
--Rik
PS. Ken, there was another one of these beasts inside the house, over the sofa. But it was much bigger -- must have been at least 3" legspan!
Canon 300D, Sigma 105mm macro at f/11 and f/7.1, electronic flash. Body width approximately 1.2 mm, leg span 35mm.
Cellar spider = "Daddy-long-legs spider"
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- rjlittlefield
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very strange grouping of the eyes Rik. The ones I have in my house don`t get that big. Sometimes if you disturb them, they shake their webs and bounce around (which I see it states in the Wikipedia article). Out of all spiders, I dislike these the most...Just plain creepy Very nice photos
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Doug Breda
Doug Breda
- twebster
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I have these guys hanging all around my back patio. Actually, they're pretty cool. I haven't seena any eat any other spiders but I have seen them eat just about anything that falls into the web. Our little mutt likes to snap at them in the webs
Best regards,
Best regards,
Tom Webster
Phoenix "The Valley of the Sun", Arizona, USA
The worst day photographing dragonflies is better than the best day working!
Phoenix "The Valley of the Sun", Arizona, USA
The worst day photographing dragonflies is better than the best day working!