Bugs at NAPWC

A curious jumping spider

She ain't ugly, shes my model. Spiders are all around us and in this dengue infested third world, we need more of them to kill mosquitoes.

There are some viviparous flies, which bring forth 2,000 young. These in a little time would fill the air, and like clouds intercept the rays of the sun, unless they were devoured by birds, spiders, and many other animals. 

— Carolus Linnaeus

Oeconomia Naturae, The Oeconomy of Nature. Trans Benjamin Stillingfleet, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History

A protective mommy spider

Fangs 

The Curious Case of the Lynx Spider

The female Green Lynx Spider shows great parental care, protecting her eggs and later, when the egg sac hatches, guarding her young until the spiderlings can fend for themselves. Each egg sac contains 25 to 600 bright orange eggs, with an average of 200 eggs. The post-embryo remains in the egg sac, requiring 11 to 16 days to hatch.

Aptly named for their bright green body color and capability of running very fast, then jumping on its prey like a cat, Lynx Spiders are found on tall grass blades, meadows of wildflowers, especially on the heads of wild buckwheat. 

Lynx Spiders do not use a web to capture its prey. They are an effective—indiscriminate—predators of insects. The Green Lynx Spider preys on beneficial bugs like butterflies, honeybees, pollinating flies wasps and other nectaring insects, including many that are larger than itself. Yet, the Green Lynx Spider is of interest because of its potential use in agricultural pest management and is considered an important predator of crop-damaging insects such as harmful caterpillars.

The spider can be easily be identified by the very long spines on their legs and their eye setting. Their abdomen is like a pencil ending in a point. The size of these spiders is between 4 and 10 mm

Although their eyesight is not as good as that of the jumping spiders they can see their prey from a distance of up to 10 centimeters. They have two large front eyes besides a smaller pair, two on the side of their head and two large ones looking above and backward giving them an almost 360 degree view

Although Green Lynx Spiders aggressively attack its insect prey, they very seldom bite humans. Females can and will bite in defense, especially when guarding egg sacs. However, their bite is generally asymptomatic, only slightly painful, with a little inflammation. They are considered medically harmless.

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