Feather-Legged Spiders - Uloborus Plumipes
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The Spider Club News JUNE 2014 - Vol.30 #2 The above cartoon appeared in “It’s Our World Too”, William Collins Sons and Company Ltd ©World Wildlife Fund 1978: ISBN 0004103300. This delightful book of cartoons by famous British cartoonists was published to raise funds and awareness for wildlife. (The World Wildlife Fund is now called The World Wide Fund for Nature.) In this issue Page 3 About the Spider Club 3 Mission Statement 3 Committee and contact details 4 From the Hub - Chairman’s letter 5 From the Editor 6 Books – e-Reader woes 7 Event report – Gauteng Outdoor Expo 8 Ezemvelo BioBlitz 10 House Spiders – Uloborus plumipes 12 Klipriviersberg Project Update 14 Klipriviersberg Collection Notes 15 Adaptive Behaviour in Benoitia sp. 17 Epic Jumping Spider Battle 19 Spider Club Diary 2014 THE SPIDER CLUB OF SOUTHERN AFRICA RESERVES COPYRIGHT IN ITS OWN MATERIAL. PLEASE CONTACT THE CLUB AT [email protected] for permission to use any of this content. THE SPIDER CLUB OF SOUTHERN AFRICA RESERVES COPYRIGHT ON ITS OWN MATERIAL. PLEASE CONTACT THE CLUB AT [email protected] for permission to use any of this content. Spider Club News June 2014 PAGE 2 About the Spider Club The Spider Club of Southern Africa is a non-profit organisation. Our aim is to encourage an interest in arachnids – especially spiders and scorpions - and to promote this interest and the study of these animals by all suitable means. Membership is open to anyone – people interested in joining the club may apply to any committee member for information. Field outings, day visits, arachnid surveys and demonstrations, workshops and exhibits are arranged from time to time. A diary of events and outings is published at the end of this newsletter. Our Mission Statement “The Spider Club provides a fun, responsible, social learning experience, centred on spiders, their relatives and on nature in general.” Contact Us Committee Treasurer Jaco Le Roux 083 258 8969 [email protected] Editor Joan Faiola 082 565 6025 [email protected] Chairman by default Astri Leroy 073 168 7187 [email protected] Membership Paul Cowan 082 773 5724 [email protected] PRO Peet Van der Ark 071 609 5790 [email protected] Secretary Vanora Naude 076 217 8592 [email protected] WEBSITE: http://www.spiderclub.co.za EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] …. At the Spider Club of Southern Africa page Spider Club News June 2014 PAGE 3 After an amazing “Indian Summer” with invertebrates in general hanging on well into the start of June, we are now into deep midwinter, at least on the Highveld. Two weeks ago I could be sure to find jumping spiders and crab spiders lurking in the flowers of the yellow daisy bush waiting to pounce on unwary insects. A male and female Leucauge festiva (masked vlei spiders) still inhabited the rosemary outside my office door, their neat, more or less horizontal webs catching my eye each time I passed. The female disappeared after making three egg cases which she hid amongst the rosemary leaves (I know where they are!) but the male stayed too long in the open and yesterday morning I found him dangling in his web, frozen and dead. It’s all a bit sad, but I suppose quite normal. I have high hopes of many, many beautiful vlei spiders to watch next summer. For several years I have been kind of jealous of Joan with her community of tropical tent-web spiders (Cyrtophora citricola) grouped in their pretty webs around her front door and amongst the cycad leaves. Now I have my own! A big pale female has her home in a young tree aloe. Interestingly, for lack of useful leaves to decorate her web and to make herself a hiding place, she has collected bird droppings! Not as aesthetically pleasing as leaves, but presumably just as useful. I am going to monitor how long she lives. I believe that tropical tent-web spiders live for several years. So with winter here, it is time to take stock and to look forward to next summer. For those of us who have collected spiders during the past season it is time to sort and label the specimens, to file photos and such like. But spidering doesn’t stop because it is winter! We have two of the ever-popular sorting workshops planned, one in July and one in August. If you really want to learn spider identification, remember to book your place. Yours arachnologically, Astri Photo in heading: Uloborus plumipes in web. Photo ©Astri Leroy. See her article on this interesting species in this issue. Spider Club News June 2014 PAGE 4 Starting with the cover page, I have been thinking for some time about using one of the handful of spider cartoons in the 1978 book It’s Our World Too. I love my copy of this little book, and I often pull it out to take a look. It makes me both happy and sad at the same time. The forward is by Prince Philip, who warned that many species of plants and animals were in danger of extinction. How much worse the situation must be today! At last the politicians are waking up properly to the dangers of global warming. Hopefully it’s not too late to save the natural treasures of this world, including our wonderful and essential arthropods, being our spiders and insects, and indeed the world itself. (The best cartoon of all in this little book is the Thelwell cartoon of stampeding zebras.) In this issue we bring you up to date with the news of the Klipriviersberg survey. I am hoping that next time we can publish articles on one or more of the other interesting surveys taking place in South Africa. Long term surveys are proven to fill gaps in distribution, and it is important for managers of natural resources to know what is present in their patches. Of course, at Klipriviersberg we would love to find new species of arachnids, but that is not really the aim of a survey, however nice it would be to find them. The point is KNOWING what you have, irrespective of what it is. There are at least two protected species in the Klipriviersberg (Highveld Baboon Spider and Highveld Burrowing Scorpion), and as Gauteng as a whole is under attack from rampant urbanization and land use change, it’s good to know there is a large area where these species can carry on their lives undisturbed. But all the other species are important too. We continue our series on House Spiders: this time the ubiquitous cosmopolitan feather-legged spider. Please let us know if you have a house spider you wish us to feature in this series. Lynette Rudman of Grahamstown spotted two tiny jumping spiders making war in her garden. We feature a series of her excellent photos to bring the fight to you! Yours in spidering Joan Spider Club News June 2014 PAGE 5 Books E-READER WOES By Joan Faiola Lately I have been reading books on my Samsung tablet, and for those who say they prefer to feel and turn the pages, I say: there are so many benefits to reading electronically, like not having to force pages to stay down, carrying loads of books on a journey without the weight and bulk, and reading more comfortably when in bed or in bad light! As the owner of over 1500 books, I am not about to eschew real printed books, however. I still love my old books and find it difficult to part with them or stop buying more. Recently, Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman brought out her wonderful book, Field Guide to the Spiders of South Africa, and you have the option to get the e-book too, from Kalahari. You need an Adobe log on for this, and I found I could download books to my laptop without problems, but was unable to validate my Adobe log on for e-books (although I could sign on to Adobe) from my tablet. But I don’t want to read books on my laptop! I want to use my tablet! Grrr! Kalahari tried to help, but failed. So at this stage I cannot download Ansie’s book. The whole point is to be able to take the tablet into the bush and access the field guide without needing to carry the book with me. I’ve got the Filmer/Larsen field guide on Kindle for tablet, but navigation is not that great. Naturally, I would like to find out what it’s like to read a field guide on an e-Reader other than Kindle. If anyone has obtained the electronic version of Ansie’s field guide and is reading it on a Gobii reader, tablet or iPad, please contact me as I would like you to write a review of the experience of using the e-reader version of the field guide. Likewise, any of you who are a bit more savvy than I am on loading stuff onto tablets can contact me to help solve my problem, and end my misery! Spider Club News June 2014 PAGE 6 Event - 2014 Gauteng Outdoor Eco Adventure and Travel Expo Midrand 30th May to 1st June Report by Mary-Ann Thomson The Spider Club’s stand at the Gauteng Eco Outdoor Expo held at Waterfall Park looked fantastic. It was a first for me and I was amazed at how much interest was shown by the general public. Astri did an awesome job of making the stand look inviting, and there were several very interesting spiders and scorpions on display, my favourite being the six eyed sand spider as I have never seen a live specimen.