Mornington Peninsula, Vic, April 2023

Over the last few months, I’ve been lured into the world of natural science and captivated by the podcast What the Duck! hosted by Dr. Ann Jones. I’ve never had a lot of time for spiders, probably since Woody was bitten by a deadly White Tailed Spider during an impromptu wine-tasting session on the neighbour’s front lawn. But I digress, that’s a story for another day. Like me, most Australians have a horror story about negotiating traffic while a hand-sized hairy Huntsman crawls across the windscreen of the car. Many of those stories end badly.

On a cheerier note, I was gardening the other day when I spotted this leggy fellow on the fence and way too close to my face. It turns out (thanks to the Vic Field Guide) that he’s a Net-casting spider (Deinopis sp).

“They hunt by throwing a small web on their prey. They spin and hold the web between their front legs, then wait for the prey to walk past, close enough to stretch the net over the animal. When the spider releases the net, it contracts and traps the prey.” – Victorian Field Guide, Museum Victoria*.

*There are Field Guide apps produced by the museums in each state and each is invaluable when travelling around Australia.