Female net-casting spider (Deinopis subrufa), also known as Ogre-faced spider, eating a fly she captured and wrapped in silk

---

Female net-casting spider (Deinopis subrufa), also known as the Ogre-faced spider, captures a fly in her rectangular net woven from silk which she holds in tarsi 1 and 2 and throws over insect prey. The web is light blue in colour and about half the size of a postage stamp. It consists of cribellate silk (also known as "hackled band" silk) which is placed as a thick, sticky overlay onto two strands of ordinaray silk. She quickly wraps the prey in the net, forming a tight ball of silk. She injects the prey with poison, then secretes digestive fluid which liquidises it so she can suck up the juices. The ball becomes black and gets smaller and smaller until only the smallest indigestible parts remain, which are discarded. Photographed on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.

---

Size: 5020px × 3346px
Location: New South Wales Australia
Photo credit: © Nic van Oudtshoorn / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: arachnid, arachnids, australia, australian, deinopis, eating, face, faced, flies, fly, invertebrate, invertebrates, netcasting, ogre, prey, silk, spider, spiders, subrufa