 |
| Image: Bernard DUPONT |
A perfectly honest, perfectly innocent leaf, shivering in the wind.
 |
| Image: Robert Whyte Tree Stump Spider (Poltys illepidus) |
A perfectly honest... twig...
 |
| Image: Robert Whyte |
It's a spider!
 |
| Image: Robert Whyte |
In other words... camouflage (dun dun DUHHHHNN)!
 |
| Image: Vijay Anand Ismavel |
There are more than 40 spiders in the genus Poltys, found in sub-Saharan Africa and the entire region from India to Japan and down to Australia.
Video: 自然谷
They build orb webs of traditional style each night, hopefully catching a few moths to make it all worthwhile.
As morning dawns, it's time to rest up. But the world is a dangerous place for a small spider, so they hide from it. And where better to hide than in plain view? Plain view is huge! If you can hide there, they'll never find you.
Video: hetaenn
Poltys spiders hug their little wood-looking legs against their little wood-looking bodies and suddenly it's not a spider anymore. It's a little wood-looking thing.
Or leaf-looking, depending on colour, texture and the dimensions of the weird pointy bit. Usually. the weirdest, pointiest ones look exactly like a dried up leaf stem.
 |
| Image: Bernard DUPONT Tailed Spider (Poltys mouhoti) |
Be careful! It might be covered in SPIDERS!
 |
| Image: Robert Whyte |
Oh no! You're hugging SPIDERS!
 |
| Image: Patrick Randall |
All the better to actually be a SPIDER with!
4 comments:
That weird pointy bit is rather impressive. It's great camouflage when hiding and rather showy garb the rest of the time.
It's weird how often camouflage is like that! Well, I guess it makes sense. A big, green plant kind of merges into the background in a rain forest but it's really showy in a hotel lounge. Gotta love animals that are so committed to mimicking a plant that they act the same way!
(1) I give up, what's that wormy thing in the top photo? Part of the spidey, or its latest meal?
(2) Squirrels may also hide in plain sight: they flatten themselves to a surface e.g. a fence top. Emergency hiding.
(3) Also birds do it (don't know about bees). You've probably seen songbirds feeding on the ground. When they spot a bird of prey they become dead birds on the ground. As still as death until the danger's past.
Wormy thing? Aside from the last picture (which shows a web), all the pictures show one spider standing on a twig. I guess you mean the thing that looks like a leaf stalk? That's part of the camouflage!
I don't think I've ever seen a squirrel do that, that's really cool! Mostly I just see them run.
Haven't seen birds do that either. There aren't many birds of prey where I live. Not sure something like that would work against a cat!
Post a Comment