Dewdrop Spider

The problem when you have a mansion, you need staff to maintain it.

Identification - Argyrodes miniaceus, the dew drop spider.

This is another story of a symbiotic relationship, in this case between two spiders. A symbiotic relationship is when two completely different species live together in harmony, each providing a service that serves the other. In this case, the tiny dewdrop spider removes tiny prey from the web, which saves the host a lot of maintenance. The dewdrop spider gets a free meal without having to expend a lot of energy building a web, which it is perfectly capable of doing.

The host in this case, as you can see from the golden drops of sticky glue, is the golden orb weaver spider, nephila pilipes.

The dewdrop spider is a kleptoparasite, which means that it feeds on the prey of others rather than catching its own food.

In this quite large web, about a metre across, I found nine spiders. The host spider sitting in the middle, there were four males nervously hanging around the perimeter and four dewdrop spiders, 5mm length.

I stopped to follow the action with the male spiders. Occasionally one would inch in closer to the female, making a lot of vibration noise with its legs, presumably not to surprise her and to announce his intentions. But every time a male got to within an inch of the female, she would angrily shake the web, sending the male scrambling for the edge of the web. Ten minutes would pass before another male had a go, with the same result.

The males only having a body length of 7mm compared with the females 40mm body length, were right to be nervous. Mating has a much better chance of success when the female is busy feeding - sounds familiar, pfft!

Dave