Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Scorpion-tailed Spider

Scorpion-tailed Spider

According to http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnura :-
Arachnura is a genus of orb-weaving spiders of Australasia, with one species found in Africa and Madagascar. These spiders mimic litter, like twigs or dead leaves, by a brownish color and appendages. They stay at the middle of their web day and night. Among the common names are tailed spider, scorpion-tailed spider and scorpion spider. They do curl up their tail when disturbed, but this tail is completely harmless, as they are not closely related to scorpiones.

This Scorpion-tailed Spider found in Penang, Malaysia mimic dead litter, like twigs as described above. However, it DID NOT stay at the center of the web during the day. Instead it hid away from the sun. It is a nocturnal spider! This Scorpion-tailed Spider is 8cm.
You can see 4 peeping eyes between the legs.

Close-up of the folded legs

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

just sharing...i am from the philippines and recently i've been doing macrophotography at our garden and i encountered this unique spider. theres a lot of them from one of my flowering plants. colors ranges from white, yellow, light brown to dark brown. i am surprised when i googled it, it turned out to be rare.