For the identification of insects and other fauna and flora of South Africa.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Spider and the ant

Sitting outside watching the sun go down, my eye caught a movement by my door.
It was a tiny Brown Widow Spider and by the time I dashed inside to get my camera, the ant was laying on its side and the spider safely in its nest against the wall.
Because the ant kept on moving, the spider would come out every now and then to bite it again. They say these spiders are piosonous, but the ant took a very long time to subside.
Once it had stopped moving, the spider kept on running around it in order to spin its web and keep it from moving.
He would take threads of the web back to the wall and secure it there. I have used a match head to indicate the sizes here.
Before 15 minutes had passed, it was secured........
...then it got too dark to take more pictures. By the next morning, it has woven a good portion of it around the ant......
..... and unfortunately I had to go off to work so did not get to photograph the end of it. By the time I got back, it was gone and I could not find whre she had stashed it.

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