🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

Deinopis spinosa, commonly known as an ogre-faced spider or gladiator spider, is in the net-casting spider family (Family: Deinopidae) found in the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and South America. Deinopis spinosa is strictly nocturnal, mimicking a dead twig during the daylight hours. After sunset, Deinopis spinosa uses a unique ‘net-casting’ foraging strategy to capture prey.

The ogre-faced spider is a medium-sized spider (total body length of approximately 10-17mm) that gets its common name from its remarkably large forward-facing posterior median eyes. These eyes are the largest eyes of any spider, with huge photoreceptors (the parts of the eye that capture light) that provide exceptional sensitivity to help them hunt at night. The posterior median eyes of Deinopis spiders absorb about 2000 times more light than Phidippus jumping spiders, who are also known for their unusually large eyes but hunt during the day.

At nightfall, Deinopis spiders abandon their sticklike camouflage to construct a non-sticky frame of silk from which they hang upside down. With their front three pairs of legs, they hold a rectangular capture web made from cribellate (woolly) silk. They actively manipulate this web and use it like a net to capture both walking and flying prey, which is successful about 50% of the time. Deinopis spinosa visually recognizes walking insects and subsequently captures them by propelling the capture net downward to entangle the prey.