Cyclosa butt

  cyclosa belly 
  Originally uploaded by budak.

The rude side of a Cyclosa spider with a view of its spinnerets in a subterminal position (talk about butt floss!), unlike most spiders where the webspinning glands are located right at the end. These little arachnids are horribly difficult to photograph as they stubbornly refuse to stretch their legs and stop pretending to be a piece of avian dandruff. And when disturbed, they like to vibrate violently on their messy, debris-strewn three dimensional webs like furious little motors.

Cylosa spiders are vaguely tick-like, with prominent abdomens and miniscule prosoma that seem barely able to contain their four pairs of shortish legs, which are squeezed onto a tight sternum. The opistosoma is built like a shield with a tail-like extension. With its legs drawn tightly together, the spider looks more like a splinter of dried leaf than a cousin of leggy orb-web spinners. Sitting in its web amidst bits of twigs, litter, leftover prey and discarded duck feathers, the beady-eyed bugeater is barely visible to passer-bys who'd likely cast a disapproving eye at its clutter and call for a campaign against slovenly araneids should they espy its shanty of a pantry.

  cyclosa bifida munching 
  Originally uploaded by budak.

Unlike its dishevelled cousin, Cyclosa bifida (right) reveals its stock as an orb-web spinner, producing a more conventional vertically-inclined fly trap close to the ground. As this species is more of a neat freak with no camouflaging elements on the web, it usually drops to the ground or swings towards nearby vegetation as a primary evasive reflex. This fellow (or more likely dame) was busy sucking up the juices of some poor bug and so ignored my attempts to blind it with a Speedlite. My duck kind of likes this species better than the one above, as it has a rather shapely abdomen resembling certain appendages that similarly produce sticky white fluids. And besides, there's something ever so attractive about ladies who suck...