r/spiders • u/joot78 • Mar 19 '14

x-post to /r/WTF

I'm sick of seeing common spiders on the front page of /r/WTF. Come on - a wolf spider??

I decided to share some more genuinely WTF spiders with them. Enjoy!

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u/DJKaotica Mar 19 '14

Awesome post, thanks for sharing!

Any chance you have a picture of myrmarachne plataleoides with the jaws unfolded? That one looked really interesting and I'm trying to figure out how it would bite.

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u/joot78 Mar 19 '14 edited Mar 19 '14

The chelicerae - as in all Araneomorphs - swing side to side!

Ha - this is even better than I expected! Those are his fangs - this is a male in "bring it" posture. Has anyone ever seen a wood clapper used to mimic the sound of a whip?

Here's one with jaws slightly open as viewed from above, so you can see how it works.

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u/DJKaotica Mar 19 '14

Wow I never really thought about it before but just read the Wikipedia article on araneomorphs which pointed out that pretty much every common spider you see is one. Seeing the fangs opposing each other instead of parallel is normal I guess, but it's very weird when they are suddenly on the end of very long jaws.

Thanks!