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Long-jawed Orb Weaver Spider - Tetragnatha sp.
There are 980 species of this spider worldwide. Long-jawed orb weavers
are fairly easy to identify by their huge, powerful jaws, or chelicerae,
and long, slender abdomen. Like the other family of orb weavers, the
Araneidae, these spiders have eight eyes and these eyes are in 2 rows.
They have 3 claws on each tarsus. There are about 25 species in North
America. The Venusta Orchard spider, a very common woodland arachnid, is
a member of this family but its abdomen is not nearly as slender. Some
species of long-jaws stand at the side of their web, keeping their legs
on a radial spoke in order to detect vibrations that signal the arrival
of prey. They are very adept at dropping out of sight at the slightest
disturbance, or carefully camouflaging themselves as thorns or simply
hiding lined up with the long axis of a twig or grass blade. They live
in meadows and marshes, woodland edges. Food: insects. Most members of
this family do not build vertical webs, they are usually tilted and
sometimes close to horizontal. In some species, only the spiderlings
produce webs. The orchard spiders build their webs in shrubs or trees.
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