A funnel web and its resident (pawb.social)

submitted 9 months ago by Foxfire@pawb.social to c/bugmenagerie@possumpat.io

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I noticed a quite lovely funnel web yesterday morning! The maker was hiding of course, so I figured I'd lightly tap the web's edge with a piece of straw. That absolutely did the trick, and I was impressed with this little spider's speed with checking out the tiny disturbance! They explored the web for a couple minutes, and I tried to take some pictures to show off both the web and it's owner. I liked this one the most, so I'm sharing it with you all!

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[-] bappity@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

funnel webs are incredible! I wonder how long they take to make...

[-] hillimor@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 9 months ago

Looks cool! Do you know what animal that is? Thanks in advance!

[-] MantidSys@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago

Grass Spider. It's not a funnel-web, because those are very darkly colored (almost exclusively solid black), are a type of tarantula, and are exclusive to places where a tree like this would never grow.

Fun fact about grass spiders: they are quite nearly pacifistic when it comes to threats. They will make an attempt to 'attack' the threat, which means lunging forward and slapping it with their front two feet, hoping to scare it off in fear of a bite. They will never bite though, and if the false attack doesn't scare away the threat, they immediately run and hide. Besides, grass spiders are harmless to humans - whereas funnel-webs have venom that is of medical significance and can even be deadly.

Fun fact 2: a grass spider will gladly move into an abandoned web of another grass spider. Two webs in our house stayed up for years, alternating between being vacant or having different occupants. They even repaired the web regularly. We took to calling the webs 'apartments', because they really were.

[-] Foxfire@pawb.social 4 points 9 months ago

I'm not exactly sure, but I did a reverse image search and this bug guide article seems promising! They say either funnelweb or grass spider: https://bugguide.net/node/view/552847