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Face of a Dinopis spider |
The
Ogre-Faced Spiders are so called because of the grossly enlarged posterior
median eyes. |
Classification:
Family Dinopidae, Net-Casting Spiders.
Habitat: Bushes along jungle fringes.
Female: 13 mm. |
| The
large eyes allow the spiders to see in darkness. |
Nocturnal.
Hangs upside down and holds an expandable net of sticky silk between
the two front legs. When an insect passes below it, it stretches out
the net, lunges downwards and flings the net over the prey.
These are large, slow-moving spiders with cribellum and calamistrum.
The cribellum is a cigar-shaped plate on the underside of the abdomen,
in front of the spinnerets. The upper margin of the second last segment
(metatarsus) of the fourth leg is armed with a row of strongly curved
spines known collectively as the calamistrum. |
Female |
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