Friday, February 15, 2008

Spiders anyone?

Had an eventful day today!

The bad: I left the camera's battery at home today; had to take the freaking expensive cab to school to meet Matthew Lim, a researcher working on 'visual' ecology.

The good: I learn that I need not be afraid of spiders, as they are quite harmless.

With beautiful front eyes, jumping spiders are more readily recognizable to me now that I took crash course SP(iders)1101E with Matthew today. Males are generally unnoticed due to their small sizes. This is because they moult less times as compared to the females, like a ration of 3 to 8. Juveniles males are normally very different morphologically from their adult appearance. Males and females are differentiated easily by the swollen palps or lack of, respectively.

Orb weavers spin webs, but never generalize.This is because most spiders do, just not the same as the large webs with elaborate details like the orb-weavers, for the sheer purpose of a retreat, usually with a female within the "cocoon" with eggs that require some form of parental pheromones for growth and development. Then, there are the 3D web weavers which are easily encountered on the slope adjacent to the soccer field known as the Wolf spiders, with a spiral spun web of certain depth that functions like a retreat.

Photos will be updated another time. Till then, my non-existent readers!

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