Long-jawed Orb Weaver Spider

Long-jawed Orb Weaver Spider - Tetragnatha straminea
Orbweaver Spider captures damselfly
Live adult spider photographed at DuPage County, Illinois, USA.
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Long-jawed orb weavers are fairly easy to identify by their large chelicerae, and long, slender abdomen. Like the other family of orb weavers, the Araneidae, these spiders have eight eyes and 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. Its abdomen is not nearly as slender as the spiders pictured here.

Habitat: 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. The orchard spiders build their webs in shrubs or trees.

Tetragnatha straminea [3]

This lovely female spider has managed to capture a damselfly for dinner. Many species in this family leave a hole in the center of their orb web, beside which they wait, and through which they can dart quickly to service clients on either side. Like most venomous spiders, they deliver a dose to immobilize their prey and begin the digestion process by liquifying the internal structures. Spiders are only capable of ingesting liquids.

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, hiding in plain sight lined up with the long axis of a twig or grass blade.

References

Bugguide.net, Tetragnathidae
Arthur V. Evans, National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America (Sterling, 2007).
Bugguide.net, "Tetragnatha straminea"

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