Oxyopidae: sharp, cat-like spiders

The family Oxyopidae contains 448 species of spiders in 9 genera. They have a worldwide distribution but are (like so many groups) most speciose in the tropics. I had never encountered one personally before traveling in Central and South America, but it turns out we have two species in the genus Oxyopes in Canada!

Oxyopids (also known as lynx spiders) all have 8 eyes, and can be easily distinguished from spiders in other families by their characteristic hexagonal eye arrangement, as well as the often dagger-like spines (called macrosetae) on their legs. The family name Oxyopidae is derived from the genus name Oxyopes, which is a combination of the Greek word for ‘sharp’ (ὀξύς), and the Latin word for ‘foot’ (pes). Sharp-legged is a rather apt description for many members of this family. (Update: according to Spiders of North America it means sharp-eyed, which is also an accurate, but slightly less obvious, descriptor.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/opoterser/749382688/in/photolist-29dMnb-29dMnJ-4WG8yp-6GdLSx/

A female Oxyopes salticus (one of the two lynx spider species found in Canada) sporting impressive (sharp-looking!) spines on her legs and the characteristic hexagonal oxyopid eye arrangement. Photo by Thomas Shahan, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Members of this family are generally diurnal hunters, with keen eyesight (for spiders) and great agility. Like the cats they are named after, lynx spiders often stalk and pounce on their prey. They are proficient jumpers, and some might even be mistaken for a salticid at first glance. This one (click the link, it’s worth it!) looks like it might actually mimic a jumping spider.

This cryptic oxyopid (a Hamataliwa species) we found in Honduras fooled me twice: at first glance it looked like a bump on a twig, and on my second look, after realizing it was a spider, the size and posture had me thinking it was a salticid. Photo: Sean McCann

Some oxyopids are ambush predators, staking out flowers and waiting for unsuspecting insect visitors. Like crab spiders (Thomisidae) with similar behaviour, green lynx spiders have the ability to slowly change colour (the process takes several days) to match the background they are sitting on – usually flowers.

A green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) from Fort Pierce, Florida. This species can change its colour to match the background it sits on (see some examples of better background-matching here under ‘identification’). Photo: Sean McCann

Like the disparate forms these spiders take – compare the Peucetia viridans above with the Hamataliwa grisea below – they also have fascinating variety in their habits. 

A Hamataliwa grisea found in Gainesville Florida. Photo: Sean McCann

While most lynx spiders are cursorial hunters that don’t use silk for prey capture, there is one web-building genus (Tapinillus), including a social spider species that engages in communal web building and cooperative prey-capture!

Peucetia tranquillini is a wanderer that invades the orb-webs of female Nephila clavipes, locating and preying on courting males by responding to their vibrations, and sometimes vibrating the web themselves, apparently to attract a resident spider (a possible example of aggressive mimicry). One individual was also found residing in the tangle-web of a brown widow (Latrodectus geometricus) for several days, capturing prey caught in the web, and even stealing prey captured by the web owner (kleptoparasitism).

Spiders in the genera Oxyopes and Peucetia are members of what I like to call the centimetres high club: they mate in the air, hanging from a silken thread spun by the female. In one species, the male wraps the female in a silk ‘bridal veil‘ before copulation.

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Oxyopes scalaris, the other lynx spider that can be found in Canada. Photo by Kyron Basu, licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 1.0.

Mother green lynx spiders guard their egg sacs and newly emerged spiderlings, and will fiercely defend them by spitting venom. While the spitting spiders (Scytodidae) shoot a deadly combination of venom and silk out of their fangs to capture prey, this seems to be the only spider with venom-spraying defensive behaviour.

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A gravid female green lynx spider (Peucetita viridans), capable of forcibly ejecting irritating venom from her fangs. Photo: Sean McCann

Check out the following posts for even more information about awesome oxyopids:

Hasta luego, Honduras!

Tomorrow Sean and I will land back home in Canada (to take a strategic break from fieldwork in Honduras). While it’s unfortunate that our current trip is being cut short, the future looks bright. When we return in a couple of months, not only will we continue our study of Red-throated Caracaras, it looks like we will also be participating in some serious arachnology! No doubt lots of cool discoveries are waiting to be made, and we will continue to blog about both projects. Already during our time in Honduras we’ve found plenty of awesome spiders that will be featured in future posts. For now, please enjoy these lovely jumping spiders (all photos by Sean McCann)!

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Kids and Spiders in Honduras

Here in Honduras, Sean and I have happily taken the opportunity to interact with some great local kids who seem almost as excited about spiders as we are!

We lent them some plastic tubes for collecting, and they headed off to search for cool spiders around town. In no time at all, they brought back an impressive collection, from tiny jumping spiders to massive wandering spiders.

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These kids are totally fearless, casually picking up spiders that are about half the length of their hands! Sometimes they were a bit too enthusiastic in their efforts to capture a speedy specimen, and one brought back a partly crushed spider and a bite on his finger to show for his efforts. (Spiders do occasionally bite, but only as a last resort if they are in a life-threatening situation!) He seemed more proud than upset by this result, but we tried our best to encourage gentler handling from then on!

Here’s a selection of the best shots from one afternoon of collecting (all photos by Sean McCann).

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A large wandering spider (family Ctenidae). I’m not sure about the identification, but she looks similar to the Ancylometes bogotensis I wrote about in a post on ‘bridal veils‘.

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A lovely female grey wall jumper, Menemerus bivittatus. This species can also be found in the southern U.S.

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A male grey wall jumper (I’m guessing he was caught in close proximity to the female), doing what wall jumpers do, hanging out on a wall.

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A tiny tarantula spiderling! Notice that the back end of the abdomen is bald… most likely in response to a kid trying to capture it, this spider has shed its defensive urticating hairs (more about tarantula defenses here).

The spiders in and around our apartment in Gualaco

Our first field expedition is scheduled for next Monday, and we still have a lot of preparations to make, including a trip back to Tegucigalpa to submit some official paperwork and buy additional equipment. While we’ve been settling in and getting things organized here in Gualaco, we haven’t gone out much, except for a visit to our new friend Rafael’s farm. That’s not to say we haven’t had a chance to find more spiders though!

On the walls (inside and out) of our new apartamento alone, we’ve found two lovely jumping spiders (Salticidae),

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and a very handsome wandering spider (Ctenidae) with neat spikes on his abdomen.

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We were somewhat less enthused to spot several of these other arachnids on one of our outside walls…

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A questing tick (family Ixodidae)! We would definitely prefer not to become a host for any of these arachnids.

Just outside is a yard full of plants, rocks, mud, and debris, which is variously occupied by the horses, pigs, dogs and other animals that wander freely through the town. This explains the abundance of ticks, and from now on we’ll be careful of wandering through this area!

At night, under the light of a headlamp, the yard sparkles with the eyes of many spiders. The other evening, a very brief investigation yielded the discovery of several wolf spiders.

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A mother wolf spider carrying her spiderlings (called pulli-carrying behaviour). Almost all female lycosids carry their offspring on their abdomens, with some exceptions.

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A male lycosid that looks like the same species as the female above.

If anyone knows more about the identities of these spiders, please let me know in the comments!

Thanks, as usual, to Sean for the beautiful photos!

Hola from Honduras!

We finally made it to our destination, the town of Gualaco in the department of Olancho, after three long days of travel (including an unexpected detour through San Pedro Sula due to poor weather preventing our plane from landing in Tegucigalpa). After spending two nights in a local hotel, we’re now installed in an affordable apartment (the rent is about a tenth of the cost of similar accomodation back home in Vancouver) that will serve as our home base for the coming months.

Things are definitely different here – for one thing, there is no hot running water in Gualaco.  This is the slightly scary, and mostly ineffective, electric showerhead that was in our hotel room. We are not sure yet whether we’ll invest in one for our new home.

Yesterday, we took a trip up some very interesting roads to the pine forest where we’ll start our caracara work. We visited the site where a local named Isidro (who will be our guide for the next month) monitored a red-throated caracara nest last year.

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We had a very long and interesting ride, with eight people in one 4-wheel drive pickup, along some extremely bumpy and muddy roads. We passed this unfortunate boa constrictor, which evidently chose the wrong time to cross the road.

Although we didn’t have much time to stop and investigate or photograph cool animals as we hiked in and out from the nest site, Sean did manage to snap a couple of shots of spiders that we passed by.

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A wolf spider (family Lycosidae) with her silk-wrapped egg sac attached to her spinnerets.

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An Argiope (Araneidae) with a beautiful star-shaped stabilimentum.

We also have plenty of familiar spider friends in our apartment, that appear to be helping with the moth infestation.

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Lucky for us, our apartment contains an abundance of cellar spiders (Pholcidae)! Here’s a female with her egg sac clasped in her chelicerae, and an attending male.

Once we’ve had more time to explore local habitats, I am sure I will be able to post lots more about the spiders of Honduras! Hasta luego!

Thanks to Sean for all the photos.