#net-casting spiders

[briery]

Net-casting spider of the genus Deinopis holding its web. (Photo by Chen Pan Liao).

[briery]

Net-casting spider of the genus Deinopis. (Copyright © Stuart Humphreys).

[worldoflis]

[The film crew] waited for five hours with the cameras trained on the spider until the cricket strayed into the killing zone beneath the net.

"The spider did not move a muscle until the antenna of that prey item, the cricket, touched the thread.

"As soon as it touched it, [the spider] was on it in a thousandth of a second," said Dr McGavin, "if we hadn't had that camera, you wouldn't have seen a thing."

"It was the most exciting thing I've ever seen," he said.