OzAnimals.com
Australian Wildlife

  Bird Dropping Spider (Celaenia excavata)





Bird Dropping Spider | Celaenia excavata photo
Bird Dropping Spider with egg sacs. The round blobs are egg sacs. Can you spot the spider - it is the lowest blob, below the cluster of egg sacs. The photo was taken in a potted palm plant on house veranda. The pink dot on one of the egg sacs looks like a scale insect, but I could be wrong there.

Photograph copyright: ozwildlife - all rights reserved. Used with permission.







SPIDER FACTS

Description
The Bird Dropping spider has a body that looks like bird droppings. This protects them from being eaten by predators such as birds and wasps.


Other Names
Death's Head Spider

Size
Female is 12 mm and male is tiny 2.5 mm.

Habitat
Found in many different habitats including suburban gardens but are hard to spot.

Food
Mostly male moths. At night the spider hangs from a thread with its legs outstretched. It then releases a chemical scent that smells like a female moth attracting male moths to their doom.

Range
The Bird Dropping Spider is found throughout much of eastern and southern Australia.

Notes
The bite is not dangerous to humans.



Classification
Class:Arachnida
Order:Araneomorphae
Family:Araneidae
Genus:Celaenia
Species:excavata
Common Name:Bird Dropping Spider