Long-Jawed Spiders!

Long-Jawed Spider Web, Homer Lake Wetland, August 5, 2021

As I make my way through the wetland these days, especially in the early mornings, I find it festooned with spider webs like the one pictured above. Most of them are oriented horizontally and have the characteristics of the orb-weaver spiders -- radiating spokes with concentric circles over the water. These are the work of long-jawed spiders. This is a family of spiders consisting of some 989 species world-wide, some of which frequent the vegetation of wetlands.

Long-Jawed Spider at the Homer Lake Wetland, July 28, 2021

These are long, slim spiders -- very "spidery" one might say. Like many other spiders they build their webs in the evening and are most active overnight, thus the prevalence of the webs in the early morning. During the day they hideout in the vegetation, sometimes relatively in plain sight, relying on the strategy of looking more like sticks than like spiders to avoid becoming prey items themselves.

Long-Jawed Spider "hiding in plain sight" on the back of an arrowhead leaf, Homer Lake Wetland, July 20, 2021

While spiders are generally not likely to win any popularity contests-- and I have to confess that when I'm at the wetland after dark and the long-jawed spiders are busy spinning webs all around me including on my tripod legs and camera it creeps me out-- I do have to say that I'm pretty sure they eat their share of mosquitoes. In the photo below are a number of small insects in a long-jawed spider web -- these don't look like mosquitoes, but they give proof of concept since they are mosquito-sized. What's the saying about the enemy of my enemies is my friend?

Mosquito-sized Insects in a Long-Jawed Spider's Web, Homer Lake Wetland, August 5, 2021

It is likely that the long-jawed spider eggsacs overwinter and the baby spiders hatch in the spring. The webs become prominent in late summer into the fall as the spiders reach a size where their webs become notable.

Comments

  1. Doug MillsAugust 22, 2021 at 5:22 PM

    They are able to walk on the water like the fishing spiders do, but I believe, just like the spiders that make webs across hiking trails in the woods, that they let out some silk that catches somewhere and they are able to cross that. Honestly I’ve never entirely figured that out whether wetland species or otherwise, but I believe that’s what they do.

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