Golden silk orb-weaver
Silk spider ( Nephila sp.)
Silk spider ( Nephila ) are long-legged, 2-6 cm large tropical spiders. Your English name silk spider they received because of their delicate but stable filaments, whose preparation is also the subject of research. In the conical abdomen, which is partly striking colorful patterned, is the spinning apparatus. It contains in the female animals of six different types of spinnerets.
Network construction, prey capture
Nephila weave very large and very stable cobwebs, in which the lower half is more pronounced. The capture spiral -shaped pendulum passes from one side to the other. Only the auxiliary spiral circles the entire circle. About the hub, the seat of the spider, she weaves a domed sun protection for thermoregulation, the barrier web, which is also seen as a variant of the so-called Stabilimentes. The thread of Nephila species shows a characteristic golden shimmer especially in sunlight.
In direct sunlight, they also change their posture in the longitudinal direction of the incident solar radiation, so that the sunlit area is kept small. May also be the Guanineinlagerungen that generate the eye-catching pattern on the abdomen, a thermal protection. With increasing heat, the silk spider pulls back into the shadows of their sun protection. Over 40 ° C occurs anesthetic state Hitzestupor a. In the cold, the body will be oriented transversely to the solar radiation, so that the body temperature increases.
Nephila first bites the prey entangled in the net, and then weaves them into the hub and resolves them eventually to eat from the network. This ensures the safe transportation of bulky booty, but takes much longer. Most orb weavers spin their prey with offensive and bite them then.
Photos are made of silk spider in Australia who were able with their very own fixed networks to capture small birds.
Fossil finds
In China, 165 million years old copy of Jurassic Nephilia Jurassica was mixed with 15 cm leg length found.
Systematics, species and distribution
By 1990 and 2004, the genus Nephila to the family of the Real orb-weaving spiders ( Araneidae ) was counted. In 2006, Platnick the revised family of spider silk Nephilidae of Kuntner. Nephila could also be an old synonym for Heterargiope ( Kishida, 1931) (= with Argiope maja ). N. sulphurea ( Taczanowski, 1873) was to Alpaida ( Real orb-weaving spiders ( Araneidae ) ). The genus Nephilengys ( L. Koch, 1872; Thetragnathidae ) contains more species that have been described as Nephila
- Nephila adelaidensis Hogg 1910 South Australia
- Nephila ambigua Kulczyn'ski, 1911 New Guinea
- Nephila antipodiana ( Walckenaer, 1842), China, Philippines to New Zealand
- Nephila celebesiana beach, 1915 Sulawesi
- Nephila clavata L. Koch, 1878 India to Japan
- Nephila clavipes (Linnaeus, 1767) United States to Argentina
- Nephila clavipes fasciculata ( De Geer, 1778) United States to Argentina
- Nephila clavipes vespucea ( Walckenaer, 1842) Argentina
- Nephila comorana beach, 1916 Comoros
- Nephila ornuta ( Pallas, 1772) Guyana
- Nephila constricta Karsch, 1879 tropical Africa
- Nephila edulis ( Labillardiere, 1799), Australia, New Caledonia
- Nephila fenestrata Thorell, 1859 South Africa
- Nephila fenestrata fuelleborni Dahl, 1912 East Africa
- Nephila fenestrata venusta ( Blackwall, 1865) West to Central Africa
- Nephila inaurata, ( Walckenaer, 1842), Mauritius, Rodrigues, Reunion
- Nephila madagascariensis inaurata ( Vinson, 1863) South Africa to Seychelles
- Nephila komaci ( Kuntner & Coddington, 2009), South Africa, Tanzania, Madagascar
- Nephila kuhlii Doleschall 1859 India to Sulawesi
- Nephila laurinae Thorell, 1881 China to Solomon Islands
- Nephila laurinae novemmecklenburgiae ( beach, 1911) South Pacific Islands
- Nephila meridionalis Hogg, 1910 South Australia
- Nephila Hermitis meridionalis Hogg, 1914 South Australia
- Nephila pilipes (Fabricius, 1793) China, Philippines to Australia a subspecies N. p. malagassa ( beach, 1907), Madagascar
- With seven subspecies