The male can certainly have a hard time of it. have a look at this pic:



The male is on the left, he's not much smaller than the female, and he's approaching the female on her web with the intention of mating. He's plucking a strand of the web with one of his front legs, telling the female that he's a male come courting rather than just a fly caught in the web. If he gets the message wrong, he's dinner.

It's not very visible in this pic at this size, but in most cases it is possible to distinguish a male spider by the "boxing gloves" on the palps.

This post was last modified: 16-09-2007 07:35 PM by wild canon.

That's a very interesting fact, wild canon. I shall have to take a closer look at the spiders I encounter in the future.

Kingfisher

Wow, I didn't realise how much bigger the females are. Im not surprised the males needs 'boxing gloves' on if his beloved intends on eating him

Hi
That spider looks like the one I tried to put out my bathroom window, all I wanted was to have a shower on my own, everytime I picked it up, then reached up to the window, it ran back down my arms, I gave up after 4 attempts.
All spiders can bite and all have venom but most of it harmless to us.
My 8 year old made me laugh the other day, he went to catch a grasshopper, "yes" he said, "got it". opened his hands and gasped "its a wasp spider", promptly chucking it on the floor.
Beautiful spiders we get loads in the fields as they eat the crickets and grasshoppers.
Kim

^^^^
Your 8 year old probably got a good shock to his system with that!

Most of the time spiders are quite harmless, but sometimes the bites can get infected due to their eating flies and whatnot.

I had a roommate once who got cellulitis from a spider bite--quite nasty. Took about four months for it to clear up completely .

Kingfisher