Bird-dropping Spider, Celaenia excavata

How do these spiders that have no web and hardly ever move, catch their prey?

Unlike the fast moving spider in my previous thread, this spider is quite the reverse, seldom moving at all. It is camouflaged as a bird dropping during the day to be overlooked by predators that might be tempted to eat it. However at night it will hang up side down in an exposed position with its front legs outstretched, just waiting for something to fly into them.

The Bird-dropping Spider Celaenia excavata

Now spiders with large webs often have trouble catching insects that refuse to fly into them, so how does this spider get something to literally fly into its arms? Well this bird-dropping spider does do it, and not just any insect, but a moth of a specific gender and often a particular species! It is hunting a male moth that is attracted to the pheromones the spider releases that mimic those of a female moth ready to mate. So the male moth thinking he has located a nice receptive lady, ends up in the spiders deadly grasp.

A hunting Bird-dropping Spider

The deception of this spider however does not end there, for there is another that will guarantee success and its evening meal. The male moths do not fly directly to the female, but will initially circle around her to make sure of her presence, for this purpose he has reasonably good eyesight. Now on the photo below squint your eyes and imagine it is nighttime with a shinning moon, and what do you see? A moth, with the white parts of the spider's front legs and abdomen appearing like wings and the central portion of the spider's abdomen, the moth's body; resulting in the moth willingly flying into her waiting arms.

Squint your eyes to see the moth

Although this bird-dropping spider may not look much, it has evolved three highly sophisticated means of not only deceiving predators but successfully attracting prey.

This specific Bird-dropping Spider, Celaenia excavata, is one of the larger bird-dropping spiders with the females growing to around 15 mm (excluding legs), but like their predators, people too seldom notice them, although they may spot her egg sacs. These are spherical and almost as large as the spider herself, which she attaches to strong silken threads. The male spider is only a quarter the size of the female and is seldom, if ever seen.

Looking after her egg-sacs

Bird-dropping Spider, Celaenia excavata

Celaenia excavata is a widespread Australian (more common in Eastern States) and New Zealand species, but has taken to citrus and fruit orchards as a preferred habitat. It is often so common in this man-made environment that it is also known as the Orchard Spider.

The rear end

If you are fortunate to encounter one of these spiders, take a minute to consider how sophisticated they are, as a master of deception they have few equals, being exceptionally well adapted to the niche they have carved for themselves.

Banded Orb-weaving Spider, Argiope trifasciata

A fast moving spider in a football jumper

The Banded Orb-weaving Spider, also known as a Banded Garden Spider, has a bright banded yellow, white and black abdomen, but instead of standing out like a sore thumb, in its habitat it blends in remarkably well. This spider constructs a modest sized vertical web (about knee high) amongst sedge or grass, which provides an environment of green, yellow and black streaks, the perfect background to her camouflage. Here the large female remains motionless, head down day and night, remaining safe and overlooked by most predators.

The Banded Orb-weaving Spider, Argiope trifasciata

The underside is just as colourful

When under threat the female banded spider will suddenly drop to the ground and seek shelter in the tangled vegetation. But should an insect fly into her web, she rockets from her resting-place, and has the intruder silk wrapped within a blink of an eye. It is then bitten on or near the head, after which she will return to the centre of the web until her venom has paralysed the intruder. She will then return and wrap her meal even more securely.

The first paralysing bite into a March Fly

The female Banded Spider is around 2 cm in length (excluding legs), so a reasonably large orb-weaving species. It is a little larger than the closely related St. Andrews Cross Spider, Argiope aetherea. This spider is well known for the bright white cross made from non-capture silk in the centre of the web, called the stabilimenta. The spider rests on this formation also in the shape of a diagonal cross, with its legs outstretched and arranged in pairs.

The Banded Spider also rests in the shape of a diagonal cross, but seldom weaves a stabilimenta, or if so, only a partial one. A study published in the scientific magazine Behavioral Ecology suggests that the bright-white stabilimenta is made to make the web more visible to flying birds and so reduce web damage from accidental collisions. It is a trade-off however, as the web also becomes more visible to flying insects and so the spider's catch is reduced.

In the Esperance region, the Banded Spider seldom weaves a stabilimenta, possibly because they construct their nests close to the ground where local birds seldom fly. Whereas the St. Andrews Cross Spider when mature (an Eastern States species not found in WA), always construct a stabilimenta, but they generally build their webs at a higher elevation and more likely in the flight-path of birds.

A partial white stabilimenta at bottom right of center

Banded Orb-weaving Spider, Argiope trifasciata

In Australia the Banded Spider is only recorded in Queensland and WA, but is found in many other parts of the world with a major exception of Europe. They do vary slightly in size, but coloration and behaviour are similar, so is the low-lying habitat amongst grass and sedges, so the international banded spider is not currently considered evolved sufficiently (due to their wide separation) into different species.

A popular habitat is a low-lying sedge area, surrounded by grasstrees

The male banded spider is a fraction the size of the female (usually between a third and a quarter) and sometimes with other males, can be found on the outer edge of the web. It is very hazardous however being a suitor to the large female, as many males end up being her lunch; those that do escape often have to shed a leg or two to distract her in the process.

A fully intact male Banded Spider

A male Banded Spider who has lost the back legs escaping the female

For reasons possibly related to nursery duties, the female will leave her web unattended. On one such occasion a very bold male took her place in the centre of the web, but alas his triumph was short lived, as next day he looked like a silk-wrapped snack.

The female Banded Spider snacking on the unfortunate male

Despite having very effective venom for paralysing invertebrates, banded spiders are harmless to humans preferring to flee and play dead rather than bite. And unless you are looking in the right place, you will probably never see one, but should you be so lucky, it is worth checking this spiders activities daily, for besides being very colorful, they are also interesting to know.

The underside of the female Banded Spider, note the broad spinneret region for fast wrapping

Prowlers of the night

They are not great climbers, don't build webs and hunt on the ground at night.

These are the ground dwelling spiders and there are hundreds of species spanning numerous families and dozens of genera. But to those who try to avoid spiders at any cost, or are simply not that interested, they tend to look much the same. Even to those who do take an interest, they are often confused with other spiders or lumped together into a handful of species. Their coloration usually is lack lustre, so few attract much attention. They are not highly venomous so are not sensational, and as they blend into their surroundings and seldom enter houses, are not regarded as pests. However, they are very common and several species would be living in most gardens.

Size-wise they can be very small and easily overlooked, or quite large with a ferocious appearance, but most are not frightening, generally they have long legs with a body size to 2 cm in length.


There are 25 genera in the family Lycosidae, with around 130 Australian species, so just calling them Wolf Spiders is probably the easiest way to go. They are identified from other families by the arrangement of their eyes that are in three rows of 4, 2, 2 with one pair much larger than the others. Some species dig shallow burrows and others climb low foliage, but all are mobile hunters, only using their nest as a daytime retreat.

Wolf Spider Hogna immansueta

These ground spiders should not be confused with the ones that live in silk lined holes (often with a trap door) and jump out to catch passing prey. These are primitive spiders and known as mygalomorphs from the main spider division in the suborder Mygalomorphae, which separates these from the modern spiders Araneomorphae. Some of these spiders are highly venomous and should be treated with the greatest of respect. One of the obvious differences between these two groups are the position of the fangs. The primitive ones have downward pointing fangs and must strike down on their prey. Whereas the modern spider fangs are designed to close on the prey like a pair of pincers, this permits these spiders to be more versatile in the way they hunt, of which running down their prey or lying in ambush are just a couple that ground spiders specialise.

A spider often confused with the Wolf Spider is the Nursery-web Spider from the family Pisauridae. Many have similar coloration to the Wolf Spider, but their eye arrangement is the main feature that separates them. Their eyes are arranged in two rows of 4 with the top row strongly recurved. The size of the eyes are similar, or the top row slightly larger. Another difference (can be seen in the photo below) is the female carries her egg-sac directly beneath her body, whilst the wolf spider trails it behind her.

Spiders or arachnids go back a very long way, possibly to when animals first emerged from the sea over 400 million years ago. The first fossils of the primitive mygaloph spiders date from the pre dinosaur period around 230 million years ago and the first modern araneomorph spider fossils from the Jurassic around 175 million years. The modern spiders with their various physical advantages then evolved into the many (and now more numerous and diverse) species we have today.

Below is another Pisauridae species, this one is commonly found on low-lying clumps of twigs waiting for insects to come within range. This species is much smaller than most wolf spiders, but can move quite quickly to catch its dinner. Like the wolf spider, these nursery-web spiders also reflect a torch light when shone in their eyes. So just scanning around with your torch held just below your eyes, you can pick them out from over 10 metres away, which is an effective method to judge their population size and preferred habitat.

Nursery-web Spider from the family Pisauridae

Modern ground dwelling araneomorph spiders, come from several families. They are hunters, do not construct a web, but some will construct a small daytime or nursery retreat and all protect their eggs in a structure made from silk web material produced from their spinnerets. Because they do not catch their prey in a web, they must restrict themselves to prey they can physically overcome, which generally would be smaller invertebrates, although with some aquatic spiders, vertebrates are also taken.

The same pisaurid species as above, but this one pretending to be an octopus. :)

Yet another Pisauridae species that is still a nursery-web spider, but is more commonly known as a Fishing Spider from the genus Dolomedes and is one of about a dozen species. This one is distinctively colored being dark brown with cream stripes. They move around easily on the surface film of still water, but can dive under to hunt small fish, tadpoles and aquatic insects. They will do the same to avoid predators. Body length is around 2 cm, making them among the largest of this group.

Fishing Spider a Dolomedes species

Although a Fishing Spider, they do not need water to survive. In my area the swamps usually dry completely during summer, it is then this spider may be found further afield. The one below I discovered in my outside bathroom, where she had decided to build her nursery-web on the ground between an old washing machine and a piece of corrugated iron.

Below is part of her nursery-web, here the spiderlings (100 plus) have hatched and after a week had ballooned off on the wind to make a life for themselves. However mum stayed with them until this period.

Below is one of the reasons mum stays with the kids, a Daddy-long-legs (Pholcidae species), is intent on gobbling up a few. This it did for a couple of days until mum noticed it, where upon it ended up a snack for her.

Another ground spider below is from the family Miturgidae and the genus Miturga (my thanks to the WA Museum for identification), it is part of a large group, some Australia wide. They build silken retreats to moult or produce egg-sacs. Some also construct a lose web framework amongst twigs near the ground.

Miturga species

It is interesting to note the legs on most of these ground spiders. They are usually strong and longish and used for running down and holding prey, but their size and arrangement is interesting. With most spiders at least one of more pairs of legs are longer than the others, plus they are usually arranged so some face forward and the others backwards. You can see with these spiders, that when at rest their legs are about the same length and arranged evenly like spokes in a wheel.

The spider below is an Argoctenus species from the family Zoridae (my thanks to the WA Museum for identification) and has just caught a moth. Spiders in this family generally hunt amongst low vegetation or leaf-litter. It is another species that looks like some members of Lycosidae the wolf spiders, except the legs tend to be more slender.

Zoridae species

Yet another ground dwelling spider, but this one very small, the body length would be no more than 5 mm, but it is extremely fast. I have no idea to which this species belongs, but I am not alone here, as there are so many ground dwelling spiders you need an expert to tell the difference between families, let alone between genera and species. So next time you see a similar shaped spider on your veranda, have a closer look. You may not be able to positively identify it, but now you should see there are different species, which make up a part of your fascinating garden eco-system.

Hemicloea a likable spider

Very thin, funny looking and knock-kneed, do you need more?

The Hemicloea belong to the family Gnaphosidae and the subfamily Hemicloeinae, of which there are currently 19 Hemicloea species, spread Australia wide. The two species I have noted around Esperance rarely exceed 2 cm in length (excluding legs) and are usually closer to 1 cm (less than half the size of most Huntsman Spiders), plus being very thin they are not very frightening, even for those with a spider phobia.

The arrangement of their legs is called laterigrade, which means the top of the leg is twisted 90 degrees and faces backwards. This gives the back legs a knock-kneed appearance, as they can touch behind the abdomen. Anyway, this twisted leg arrangement permits the spider to get down really low to squeeze into very small spaces. Not only that, it also allows it to move forwards, backwards and sideways.

A male Hemicloea species, indicated by the large palps near the mouth and next to the front legs.

Normally these spiders live under rocks or loose tree bark, but sometimes they find a tiny crack in the walls of your house and hey presto, when you pick something up, out scuttles this funny looking spider in a complete mess and wondering what to do next.

I leave them alone, as they do no harm, but despite their funny appearance, they catch and eat other spiders, bugs, etc. So great to control any build-up of currently unseen less amusing species.

This is the female (bulkier and also shorter legs) feeding on another spider.

A close-up of the meal.

Below you can see how thin they are! Just a tiny crack is all they need to squeeze into.

Another male finishing off a beetle. Hemicloea species

This fellow has a weird clownish appearance, with the front legs grossly out of proportion to the rest of it.

When I first saw it, I thought it may be one of the many Huntsman Spiders, but when keying it out from observable photographic features, I thought the flat abdomen placed it in the Hemicloeinae subfamily. Now there are two main genera here, the Hemicloea and the Hemicloeina, the latter recently revised. The difference between these groups is the arrangement of the spinnerets, which cannot be seen in these photos. So exactly where it lies I am not sure. If anyone out there can assist, your comments would be welcome.

Update March 2009: An error on my part because it is one of the Huntsman Spiders, but not a common one where I live, as this photo is the only observation I have made of this species. A distinctive feature that separates this spider from the Hemicloea is the long front legs as compared with the rear pair.

This spider also has the slender profile.

This is the only spider I have seen of this species. It is obviously a male, but has lost one of its palps, so probably there are ladies of this species (unknown to me) around too.

All these spiders are wandering hunters so don't build messy webs. Therefore, if you are fortunate to find one in your house, let it put a smile on your face then permit it to go about its business because they are doing you a great service.

White-tailed Spiders, Lampona species.

A spider with a bad reputation?!

This spider has been accused of biting people and causing flesh-eating ulcers that refuse to heal. However, recent research of 130 bite victims (by two of the most common species from this genus), found no incident of skin damage other than from a painful bite (greater than a bee sting) lasting up to 24 hours. The conclusion given was these spiders are innocent of their reputation.

Nevertheless, something has caused these flesh-eating ulcers, which the people affected claim were from a spider bite. Another possible explanation is the bacteria living around the mouthparts of most spiders, probably as a result of their meals. If this was the cause, it could involve a range of possible spiders as few people have more than an elementary knowledge of spider identification.

Yet another factor, assuming the people were actually bitten by a Lampona species, is there are around 60 recognised species in this genus (occurring Australia wide), but only two of these were tested. Although not all of these spiders have a white spot on their tail, they are however of similar shape and the white dot in most instances is not particularly obvious.

This is one of the White-tailed Spiders. Note the white spot on the tail.

White-tailed Spider a Lampona species

These spiders are wandering night-time hunters that do not build a web, although they sometimes construct a tubular silken retreat, or to lay eggs. Their main diet is other spiders, especially the black house spider, so for those who dislike the look of the house spider and its untidy web, they might prefer the smarter white-tailed spider.

Being hunting spiders their eyesight is good. They have eight eyes (all forward facing) in two rows of four.

During the day, the white-tailed spider rests under bark, logs, rocks or leaf-litter.

This young spider is checking out what the Pie-dish Beetle is eating, but fortunately for the beetle, it is not on the menu.

Most of these spiders are between 1 and 1½ cm in length (excluding legs), but some (like the one below) are closer to 2 cm. I discovered this individual in the open on one of my nightly rambles and like most invertebrates in this situation, they tend to either freeze or move slowly. This one decided to move slowly. It was obviously not happy being caught in the open and initially hugged the ground.

However, it started to become annoyed when I continued to follow it.

In this shot it was very upset and began arching its back, presumably an aggressive posture.

When it reached the weeping foliage of a sedge, it turned and stood on tip-toe like a defensive/aggressive cat, side-on with arched back to make it look more dangerous. It certainly worked on me, as I had no intention of placing a part of my anatomy anywhere near it.

So my advice with spiders, is to treat them all with respect. Don't tease or mess with them because like most wild animals, they will regard you as a threat and are then more likely to bite. If you want to relocate any, simply place a glass over them, then slide a piece of paper or thin board under to trap it. Then release it outside! Alternatively if difficult to reach, a gentle nudge with a broom will usually make the spider crawl aboard so it too can be carried outside, but do it slowly/gently in order not to panic the spider.

Many people are paranoid about spiders, but this is usually due to ignorance and fear. The more you get to know them, the less fearful you become. So get to know your local species and discover how diverse they are in appearance and habit. Most spiders are not aggressive and none are interested in going out of their way to attack you, so inspect them from a respectful distance and learn to appreciate the importance of these creatures in your environment.

The Black Wishbone Spider

Aname species a Black Wishbone Spider, also known as the False Funnel-web

These spiders belong to the suborder Mygalomorphae, which are medium to large primitive spiders, with downward pointing fangs requiring them to strike down on their prey. The female of the Black Wishbone Spider is quite large and to some can look very frightening, but fortunately she seldom leaves her burrow unless attacked by predators like scorpions and centipedes.

Aname species - Black Wishbone Spider

Her body length can exceed 3 cm and if disturbed is usually very aggressive.

They build a near vertical tunnel lined with silk, sometimes branched into a wishbone shape, but do not construct a trap door, leaving the entrance to the burrow open from which they spring upon any passing prey. Should you want a heart stopping experience, just pretend you are an insect outside their burrow and see how fast they can appear. The burrow entrance however, is often blocked during the hot summer months, probably to conserve moisture.

Below she is carrying/bulldozing sand from her burrow.

The site of recently excavated sand with the burrow entrance.

The male of this species whilst looking for the ladies, can be found wandering around at night, particularly after rain in spring and autumn. Being smaller, he needs to protect himself from being regarded as prey from the much larger and heavier female, this he does by restraining her with strong spurs on the front legs that can be seen in the photo below.

The male although smaller in body size, have very large fangs and should not be messed with. Although the venom from this species is not as toxic to humans (no known fatalities) as the Sydney Funnel-web, they can still inflict a very deep and painful bite.