Comb-footed Platform Spider

Introduction

The Comb-footed Platform Spider is named both for the comb-like structure of its feet and its platform web.

Identification

The Comb-footed Platform Spider has a striking patchwork colour pattern, but is best recognised by its moderately large, distinctive web with a leaf detritus retreat.

Habitat and distribution

The Comb-footed Platform Spider is common in bushland and gardens in eastern Australia.

Feeding and diet

When insects fly into the 'knockdown' network of threads of the Comb-footed Platform Spider's retreat, they fall through onto a silk sheet where they are seized by the spider.

Other behaviours and adaptations

The Comb-footed Platform Spider is not as specialised a retreat builder as the leaf-curling orb weavers; however a curled leaf may be used, or some leaf detritus may be loosely silked together. The retreat is placed in the centre of a network of threads spun above a horizontal, close-meshed silk sheet. These webs are usually built among understorey shrubs and low trees and are often seen in overgrown gardens.

Breeding behaviours

The egg sacs are placed inside the Comb-footed Platform Spiders' silk retreat.

Predators

The complex webs of the Comb-footed Platform Spider harbour a range of other animals, from small moth larvae that scavenge along the silk lines to spiders that find prey in the outer parts of the web. Some of these are small prey stealers of the genus Argyrodes. However, they include one species that is a specialist predator on N. mundula. Argyrodes incursus is a small, jet black spider with a single red spot on its abdomen. Somehow, the smaller spider kills the larger N. mundula and eats it, finally making its own egg sac within the dead host's retreat.