Nephila edulis
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| ?Edible golden silk spider | ||||||||||||||||
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| Nephila edulis (Labillardière, 1799) |
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Aranea edulis |
The Edible golden silk spider (Nephila edulis) widely occurs in Australia, where it is found in both tropical and temperate regions, and parts of New Guinea and New Caledonia.
It has a large body size variability, females can reach a body length of about 23mm, males about 6mm. The cephalothorax is black with a white pattern on the back, and a yellow underside; the abdomen is grey to brown.
The web is about 1m in diameter and protected on one or both sides by a strong "barrier" web. N. edulis breeds from February to May., and produces an average of 380 eggs.
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[edit] Name
The species name edulis means "edible" in Latin. While it is not entirely clear why this particular species is considered edible, it is known that several Nephila species are considered a delicacy in New Guinea, where they are plucked by the legs from their webs and lightly roasted over an open fire.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ Meyer Rochow, V.B. (1973). Edible insects in three different ethnic groups of Papua and New Guinea. Am J. Clin. Nutr. 26:673-677.
[edit] Further reading
- Uhl, G. & Vollrath, F (2000). Extreme body size variability in the golden silk spider (Nephila edulis) does not extend to genitalia. J. Zool. Lond. 251:7-14 PDF
- Vollrath, F., Madsen, B. & Shao, Z. (2001). The effect of spinning conditions on the mechanics of a spider's dragline silk. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 268:2339-2346 PDF DOI:10.1098/rspb.2001.1590
