Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Black Widow Spider

Black Widow Spider, Latrodectus mactans 
Size: 1.5 in (38 mm) long, 0.25 in (6.4 mm) in diameter
Ave rage Life Span: 1 to 3 years

Black widows are notorious spiders identified by the colored, hourglass-shaped mark on their abdomens. Several species answer to the name, and they are found in temperate regions around the world.

This spider's bite is much feared because its venom is reported to be 15 times stronger than a rattlesnake's. It is nonaggressive and bite only in self-defense.

The animals most at risk from the black widow's bite are insects—and male black widow spiders. Females sometimes kill and eat their counterparts after mating in a macabre behavior that gave the insect its name. Black widows are solitary year-round except during this violent mating ritual. 

To feed, black widows puncture their insect prey with their fangs and administer digestive enzymes to the corpses. By using these enzymes, and their gnashing fangs, the spiders liquefy their prey's bodies and suck up the resulting fluid. 

 - National Geographic

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Sexton Beetles

Sexton Beetles
Silpha vespillo (Linnaeus 1758)

Sexton beetles, also know as burying beetles have a keen sense of smell and are attracted to rotting bodies, such as dead birds or small mammals such as mice and rats. First, the beetles mate, then set to work to bury the carcass, by digging out the soil beneath it. They then lay their eggs in a chamber dug into the soil next to the carcass. When the larvae hatch, they feed on the decaying flesh of the decaying corpse.
- World of Animals, M. Walters & J. Johnson