Australia's most amazing spiders. Spider Kamechaty hunter. Dolomedesy Spider night hunter description

I used to tell you about the goliath bird-eating spider or Blond's theraphosis and called it in ours the biggest spider in the world. After all, the span of his legs reaches 28 centimeters. But apparently someone found another spider and stretched its legs a little wider by 30 centimeters and now it is called the largest spider in the world. Or would it be more correct to be the longest?

Let's find out what kind of spider it is.

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One of Asia's largest spiders, Heteropoda maxima (aka giant hunter spider), also lives in hard-to-reach places.

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The span of his legs reaches 30 centimeters: according to this indicator, he has no equal in the world. Like any self-respecting spider from a fairy tale, he lives in a cave.

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In 2001, Peter Jaeger discovered this species in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, after which he traveled to the remote corners of Laos to see it with his own eyes in its natural habitat.
Why this spider grows to such a size is still unknown.

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"It's hard to find a definitive explanation," Yager says, "but it seems to me that in the case of Heteropoda maxima, one of the reasons is probably related to its cave lifestyle. There is less prey here than outside, that is, the spider grows more slowly, and perhaps that is why eventually becomes so big."

Unfortunately, the fame of the giant hunter spider has already led to sad consequences. According to Yager, the population is declining due to unregulated demand from rare animal and insect dealers.

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Large hunting spiders are also found in Australia. They usually hide under exfoliated tree bark, but sometimes their long legs peek out from behind wall clocks and even from behind sun visors in cars.

They prey on harmful insects, such as flies, and therefore can be considered quite useful creatures.

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Heteropoda maxima lives in the Lao province of Khammouan, where it probably inhabits caves. However, unlike other spiders that inhabit caves, its eyes are not reduced.

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Both genders are the same color. The main color is brownish yellow. There are several irregular dark spots on the cephalothorax. The abdomen is somewhat darker than the cephalothorax and has two small dark indentations. Chelicerae, labium and coxa are dark red-brown. There are dark spots on the pedipalps. Males are slightly smaller. Very little is known about these interesting spiders.

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• Class: Arachnida Lamarck, 1801 = Arachnids
• Squad: Araneae = Spiders
• suborder: Araneomorphae = Araneomorphic spiders
• Family: Theridiidae = Tenet spiders

Species: Dolomedes fimbriatus L. = Hunter spider

The hunter spider belongs to the tarantula family and, if it does not live in the water itself, then always near it and even above its very surface.

The color of the upper side of his body is olive-brown with a wide yellow or white border on the sides. In the middle of the abdomen, four longitudinal rows of silvery-white dots are noticeable, the chest is yellow with a brown edge, and the belly is gray. The female reaches 1 inch and the male barely 5 lines.

This is the same spider that you capture every now and then along with marsh plants. This spider does not build an underwater bell, but builds an equally interesting water raft. The fact is that this spider, having remarkably fast legs, perfectly catches up with any prey on earth, and when it has to chase it through the water, then, being a bad walker in the liquid element, it resorts to this kind of trick: having gone to the middle water, collects dry leaves and other light objects floating on the surface of the water and, having knocked them into a heap, binds them tightly with silky cobwebs, and now something like a raft is obtained. Now the spider is no longer afraid of water, no longer afraid of either the waves or the wind, and, sitting on its floating island, it moves from one edge of the puddle to the other, vigilantly watching its prey. And as soon as he notices something suitable, with the speed of lightning he rushes at the victim, clings to it and drags it onto his raft, where he devours it.

The female of this spider attaches her testicles to plants near water and surrounds them with her cocoon of loose white cobwebs. Having laid the eggs, she diligently guards until the babies hatch from them, and then she leaves the care of them to nature itself.

Such a spider I caught on the Uche River lived with me in a small bank all summer, eating flies, which I threw to it, after damaging the wings a little so that they could not fly away. From the leaves scattered by me on the water, he arranged for himself a kind of raft, tying them very cleverly with cobwebs, and sat on them, constantly vigilantly watching what was happening on the surface of the water and around him. In order to catch prey, he entangled with a cobweb not only a swamp plant that towered above the water, to which, it must be said, he attached his raft, but he skilfully drew several threads near the very surface of the water, which he did by quite deftly holding on to the water. His appetite was quite large, and if he did not receive two flies a day, then at first he showed amazing activity in tricks for catching prey, and then fell into some kind of drowsiness, even as if changing his rather bright color to a paler, molt .

The biological side of this spider, apart from what has just been said, is still very little known, but it deserves the attention of amateurs who, in all likelihood, will find a lot of interesting and instructive things in the life of this animal.

Scientists have announced that they have discovered a new species of giant tarantula, whose leg span reaches 20 cm. In other words, the size of this spider reaches the size of an average human face.

And if that didn't scare you enough, it's worth noting the fact that this representative lives in trees. Now imagine that you are walking in the woods and a spider the size of a volleyball dangles from a cobweb and lands on your face.

However, as the scientists explained, due to deforestation and the lack of a suitable habitat, they also settle in old buildings.

A new species was found in the north of Sri Lanka and named Poecilotheria rajaei.

It belongs to the tiger spiders with a beautiful colorful pattern, being also fast and poisonous.

Scientists say that the bite of this tarantula is not fatal to humans, but it is capable of killing animals such as mice, lizards, small birds and snakes.

The biggest spider in the world

The discovered spider belongs to the South American tarantulas, to which it also belongs Goliath tarantula (Theraphosa Blonda)- the largest spider in the world, whose leg span reaches up to 28 cm and weighs 170 grams. It lives in the rainforests of Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, as well as Venezuela and Brazil.

Despite the intimidating appearance and the telling name, it is relatively harmless, and does not eat birds, but prefers insects, as well as frogs and lizards.

Photo of the largest spider

The world's largest spiders

Giant Hunter Spider ( Heteropoda maxima)

The leg span of this spider reaches 30 cm, but they do not have a very large body, and these are not the largest spiders in terms of weight. They live in caves in Laos.

Brazilian tarantula ( Lasiodora parahybana)

This spider lives in the northeastern part of Brazil. The size of the legs reaches 20 cm, and sometimes 25 cm, and the weight of the spider is more than 100 grams. They are quite popular pets among spider lovers.

Colombian tarantula ( Xenesthis immanis) and ( Xenesthis monstrosa)

Both of these species have the same size, and their leg span reaches 23 cm.

Spider "Hercules baboon" ( Hysterocrates Hercules)

This is certainly not a baboon, but it also boasts a large leg span - 20.3 cm.

These spiders do not weave webs. They are often referred to as fishing spiders.

The life of these spiders is associated with water, although they are not truly aquatic. You can see them in ambush on the shore of a reservoir: the hind legs cling to the coastal vegetation, and the front ones are on the water in order to catch the approach of the victim by fluctuations in the surface film. If the hunters are frightened off, they dive under the water with a quiet splash.

The genus Dolomedes from the Pisaurid family has about 100 species living on all continents. In Europe, there are two species that are very similar to each other. They run with us too.

Females carry eggs in a spherical web cocoon, the diameter of which can reach 1 cm.

The limb hunter is one of our largest spiders. Females are larger than males and reach a length of 6 cm with legs. They are found near water bodies and in damp wetlands quite far from water, but they hunt mainly on water, eating mosquito larvae, water striders, dragonflies, flies and insects that have inadvertently fallen into the water . They can catch small fish. Grabbing and biting the prey, they drag it to the shore so that they can slowly suck out the already dissolved contents there. They do not need to braid the victim with cobwebs and wait - one bite is enough to digest not only the insides, but even part of the insect's strong integuments.

RUNNING ON THE WAVES

Dolomedes are quite large spiders and nevertheless feel at home on the surface of the water. They are light enough to float on the surface. It also helps that on the legs and body there are special hairs covered with a fat-like substance that repel water. But running on a shaky surface, like on land, does not work, and the spiders glide along it, or rather, in its upper layer, like on skis, only instead of skis they have dense water pits that form under their feet due to the bending of the film of surface tension of water.

Kamchataya hunter lives not only in reservoirs, but also in swampy meadows.

You can compare these pits with oars. The spider rows alternately with two pairs of middle legs, using the front and back pairs as floats. Probably, water strider bugs move in much the same way.

Sometimes a spider has to develop considerable speed in order to have time to grab an insect that has fallen into the water. But if you move on the oars very quickly, then the pressure of the paws on the water increases and the spider can go under the water, like a water skier who has lost his balance. Therefore, in such cases, he uses a different tactic: he leans back, rises on his hind legs and nimbly jumps through the water as if at a gallop, sticking his legs into the water, at a speed of more than half a meter per second. This is more like a rapid run on the water of the South American basilisk lizard.

Insects that have chosen coastal plants often become victims of this spider.

FISHER UNDER SAIL

But that's not all. With a fair wind, dolomedes are able to sail. The spider's raised front paws serve as a sail, and even the whole body, especially in young, very light spiders. They can also drift, using a leaf or a blade of grass instead of a raft.

If the dolomedes is frightened, it dives under the water with a quiet splash. There he can stay for quite a long time, about an hour, holding on to aquatic plants with his paws. Air bubbles covering his body help him breathe underwater. They also help you float to the surface. Once under water, the spider can, on occasion, attack tadpoles and fry, and sometimes fish the size of a small stickleback, which is why these spiders are also called fishing spiders.

MOTHER NUNSPERS

Mating takes place in May - June, after which the female, having climbed onto the coastal vegetation, constructs a dense brown cobweb about 1 cm in diameter and lays up to 500 eggs in it. A caring mother carries a cocoon with her for about three weeks, holding it between her legs with chelicerae and attaching it to the spider webs with a cobweb. In the morning and evening, it takes it out to the sun, and during the day it periodically dips it into water so that it does not dry out, rotating its hind legs for more even wetting, and during this period it usually does not hunt. Shortly before the appearance of the spiderlings, she again climbs onto the plants and builds a brood dome. For about a week, the spiders will sit in the dome and the spider will be nearby, carefully guarding them. This is what many pisaurids do. It is understandable why they are also called nurse spiders.

Then the young spiders will disperse, will grow, and only after surviving another winter, will they become adults and also leave behind offspring.

Many male pisaurids present wedding gifts to females - flies wrapped in a web, and some go to the trick, slipping inedible empty insect skins or pieces of plants instead. This increases their chances of not being eaten when mating.

The male dolomedes does it easier: he waits for the female to catch the prey and start eating, and sometimes does without it. Hitting the water with his belly and waving his front legs in front of the female, he shows her his disposition. At this point, how lucky: it happens that he himself becomes prey.