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Growth and Development of Deinopis sp.

This blog will be my record of the development of some Deinopis spiderlings that I am rearing.

It all started with the capture of ‘mum’ at my work place in Perth, Western Australia. I had noticed an unusual spider around March 2013 outside our building at work and discovered it was a Net-casting Spider. These spiders are also known as Ogre-faced Spiders due to the huge, prominent eyes at the front of their head. They are pretty cool spiders, as they don’t build a web in which they sit and catch their prey, rather they create a ‘net’ which they attach to their front legs and cast over passing prey items.

The WA museum were unable to confirm a species name for me, but having found a great blog on wildlife in the Esperance region of WA, I'm fairly sure the species is Deinopis unicolor as the first one I spotted at work looked like the male in the blog linked below.

http://esperancewildlife.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/net-casting-spider-deinopis-unicolor.html

Some further information on Net-casting Spiders - http://australianmuseum.net.au/Net-Casting-Spiders

All images © Tanya Bennett 2013