Abstract
Spiders are powerful predators, but the threats confronting them are numerous. A survey is presented of the many different arthropods which waylay spiders in various ways. Some food-specialists among spiders feed exclusively on spiders. Kleptoparasites are found among spiders as well as among Mecoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, and Heteroptera. Predators are found within spiders' own population (cannibalism), among other spider species (araneophagy), and among different species of Heteroptera, Odonata, and Hymenoptera. Parasitoids are found in the orders Hymenoptera and Diptera. The largest insect order, Coleoptera, comprises a few species among the Carabidae which feed on spiders, but beetles are not represented among the kleptoparasites or parasitoids. Spiders are successful predators with important tools for prey capture, viz, venom, diverse types of silk for snaring and wrapping, and speed. But spiders are prey for other organ- isms as well. This paper presents a survey of all the threats spiders have to face from other arthropods (excluding mites), based on data from the literature and my own observations. Spiders are often defenceless against the attacks of others, just as most spider victims are defenceless against the spiders and their methods of capturing prey. In this article I look at the spider in its environmental context from four Spiders and their prey
Highlights
Spiders are successful predators with important tools for prey capture, viz, venom, diverse types of silk for snaring and wrapping, and speed
This paper presents a survey of all the threats spiders have to face from other arthropods, based on data from the literature and my own observations
Gauld (Ichneumonidae) is ready to pupate it stimulates the host spider Plesiometa argyra (Walckenaer) (= Leucauge argyra (Walckenaer)) (Tetragnathidae) just before it will die to produce a hub for a new web and repeat this over and over again, fabricating a “cocoon web” for its own parasitoid wasp (EBERHARD 2000, 2001), this process probably stimulated by chemicals brought into the host’s body
Summary
Araneae For spiders any other spider is potential prey when it falls within the limits of its range of possibilities (size, danger, risk, defence of prey, etc.). The genus Portia is the best known genus (five species) which exploits this type of prey capture, but there are three other genera which show this type of behaviour as well, viz. Brettus (two species), Gelotia (one species), and Cyrba (two species) (WANLESS 1984) All these salticids share the characters of good vision with the ability to walk over sticky and non-sticky webs ( JACKSON 1986). When a mantispid larva has settled on a young spider it has to get on the newly emerging instar of the spider when it moults It may seek refuge temporarily in a book lung during the moulting process. Spiders which suffer from mantispid egg predation by spider boarders belong to a wide range of families of web builders as well as active hunters (REDBORG 1998), while the independent egg sac penetrators all feed exclusively on the eggs of hunting spiders. At least regionally, such as Homonotus sanguinolentus Fabricius which exclusively hunts for Cheiracanthium erraticum (Walckenaer) (Miturgidae) which is left in its own silken nest (NIELSEN 1936)
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