Скачать или смотреть Sheet Weaver Spider (Tenuiphantes sp) - Brighton, November 2021

Tenuiphantes is a small genus of seven Sheet weaver spiders in the family Linyphiidae which consists of over 270 species, also known as Money spiders. This represents approx. 40% of all UK spiders.

Although they are very a common and widespread family of spiders, with one of them T.tenuis believed to be the most common spider in the UK, at between just 1.8 and 4 mm in length it's a fair bet they are overlooked by most people.

Tenuiphantes are impossible to identify with the naked eye and difficult even under a microscope.

All are black-bodied with brown legs. with a pattern of black chevrons against a lighter background on their abdomen.

As you can probably tell from the video, they are so small it was very difficult to retain a steady hand-held focus on both the spider and individual threads.

As with most species of Money spiders, Tenuiphantes can often be found almost at ground level in many habitats, making long sheets of webbing above and below which they will suspend a series of guide threads, as seen in this video.

The webs I found seemed to be connected in one very long thin line on a woodland edge, for countless metres.

While a carefully treading insect can walk on the sheet web itself without becoming entangled, should it fly into the guide threads it's in trouble, as its attempts to break free will soon alert a waiting spider. Either that, or the prey will fall into the sheet below, from which it will now become very difficult to escape.

Money spiders reproduce sexually. First, the male has to track down a mature female by picking up a trail of pheromones she produces to attract mates. And he needs to do so before other males get there first.

If he succeeds, he releases signals to alert her that he's not prey and does his best to dispense with her trail unless it attracts further unwelcome male company.

If she accepts his advances he deposits sperm into a specially created sperm web, before using his palps to transfer the sperm into the female. When the female is ready to lay eggs in the future, she fertilizes her eggs with the sperm collected.


PK

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