Thursday, November 09, 2017

The pirate is a cool cat

This teeny-tiny spider was climbing my wall last night.


Pirate spider, Mimetid sp.

She is about 3 or 4 mm. long (body only), and like all pirate spiders, has a comb of long spines on her front legs.

And she's wearing a cat face.

Meow!
The pirate spiders are all tiny, from 3 to 7 mm. long. And yet, their diet mainly consists of other spiders. Larger spiders, sometimes much larger.

To kill a large spider, "Kitty" bites him on a leg. Her venom, specifically suited for arachnids, kills him quickly. Then she eats him slowly, holding him with those spiny front legs, and sucking the juices out of one leg at a time; he's too big for one meal.

Crawling around under my desk and behind the furniture, looking for more spiders, I discovered many empty spider corpses. "Kitty" has been busy.

A couple of years ago, I found another of these here. The photos of this one were taken from a different angle, and she seems to be wearing sunglasses.


Cool cat!

The good people at BugGuide identified her for me.




4 comments:

  1. haha That's a cute lil tacker.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Last night I found a small orb weaver in the middle of her delicate web on the side of the BBQ. - Margy

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope I find one of those. Great photos.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They're tiny. Look for them near empty cobwebs. Not theirs; the webs of their prey.

      Delete

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