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EARTH

New !

Tetragnatha sp.

Common Name: Grass Spider or Big-Jawed Spider
Grass: Eragrostis unioloides or Rumput Kolam Padang

Don't laugh when I tell you its 'third leg' is very short! Well, it is not your 'ahem'! If you still do not know what I mean, the 'third leg' is our * Singlish's answer to the British 'willie'! (pictured right)

In any case, it is not the size but how you use it that matters ! : )

The Grass Spider actually has a special function for its third pair of limbs. According to the experts, these are adaptations evolved specially to live life on grasses. They are used primarily to hug the slender grass stem. They act like a sort of 'stapler'. The spider completes the camourflage by stretching its hind pairs of limbs straight up along the stem, while doing the same but opposite direction with the two front pairs.

The other special feature, aside from its stick-like body, is its exceptionally huge and extendible jaws. The jaws of the male spider are equipped with a spur each. These are again adaptations which effectively lock the jaws of the female during mating and prevent the 'she-devil' from making fast-food out of her mating partner! Of course, the jaws are deadly hunting tools too.

Grass Spiders are quite amazing fellows with a family connection spanning both sides of the Atlantic as well as Asia. It is invariably found among wetland grasses eating mosquitoes! Environment-people would definitely love them, i.e. if their fogging did not get to them first! [Side note: The mosquitoes simply fly off temporarily and return to a spider-free safe-zone after the fogging has subsided or blown away -- well, all thanks to the environment-people for the indiscriminate killing of the spiders and other beneficial insect predators!]

Last but not least, Grass Spiders tend to make horizontal or not-so-horizontal orb-webs. The open hub at the centre of the orb-web is generally considered a distinguishing mark of the Grass Spider's family - Tetragnathidae. See the orb-web of a sister-species - probably a Tylorida.

* Singlish: the colloquial language of Singaporeans... lah! : )

See mosquito-eating plant - Bladderworts