Saturday 19 August 2006

Missing lynx

The spider has a bad name: to most of us, she represents an odious, noxious animal, which every one hastens to crush under foot. Against this summary verdict the observer sets the beast's industry, its talent as a weaver, its willingness in the chase, its tragic nuptials and other characteristics of great interest.
J. Henri Fabre

Every garden has lynx spiders, Oxyopes, but they're not easy to spot among foliage. They are itinerant hunters. Instead of building webs, lynx spiders locate their prey by sight and leap on them in feline fashion.

Few people have turned their microscopes towards the Australian lynx spiders. We know something of their anatomy and systematics but very little of their ecology and life history.