Unidentified spider and eggs sacks (?)

sorbukar · #1 (**permalink**) 01-08-2010, 01:56 PM

Any ideas what this spider is? Terrible photo of the spider (especially after shrinking it to fit the image library) but I'm guessing the egg sacks are identifiable. Lots of information in the photo description.

Jason Green · #2 (**permalink**) 01-08-2010, 02:40 PM

Afternoon Sorbu, and welcome to WAB!

Can you crop a copy of the original image down to show the spider itself? To me it looks like the Cave Spider, Meta menardi from the distinctive-looking eggs-sacs and further coroborated by the way the spider is holding his front legs.

The habitat fits perfectly - dark. Nice find if so, because of their habitat they are often difficult to come across.

Take care,

Jason

frits_b · #3 (**permalink**) 01-08-2010, 02:41 PM

At first I thought these egg sacs looked like those of Ero spiders. On second thought, they are a bit big for Ero (comparing them to the hand in the picture), so Meta menardi is probably a good guess. The spider does rather look like M. menardi.

sorbukar · #4 (**permalink**) 02-08-2010, 08:40 AM

Thank you both. I think you are right having looked at other images of cave spiders. Jason mentioned the way it's legs are held. I did notice that the front four legs and back four legs were held parallel and stretched out forward and backwards in a very distinctive way, but it wasn't as obvious in the photo.

Cropped image (best quality I could get) attached.

Thanks again
Andy