Bowl and doily spider

Bowl and doily spider
female F. communis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Suborder:	Araneomorphae
Family:	Linyphiidae
Genus:	Frontinella
Species:	F. communis
Binomial name
Frontinella communis (Hentz, 1850)
Synonyms
Linyphia communis Frontinella pyramitela

male F. communis

Several bowl and doily spider's webs wet with dew, on a trail in the Adirondacks, between Long Pond and Bessie Pond, St. Regis Canoe Area.

The bowl and doily spider (Frontinella communis) is a species of sheet weaver found in North and Central America. It is a small spider, about 4 mm (0.16 in) long, that weaves a fairly complex sheet web system consisting of an inverted dome shaped web, or "bowl", suspended above a horizontal sheet web, or "doily", hence its common name. The spider hangs from the underside of the "bowl", and bites through the web small flies, gnats and other small insects that fall down into the non-sticky webbing. The webs are commonly seen in weedy fields and in shrubs, and may often contain both a male and a female spider in late summer - like many linyphiids, Frontinella may cohabitate for some time.

The scientific name F. pyramitela is commonly seen, but this is a junior synonym.^[1]

Close-up.

Footnotes

References

• Platnick, Norman I. (2009): The world spider catalog, version 9.5. American Museum of Natural History.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frontinella communis.

Wikispecies has information related to: Frontinella communis

• Frontinella communis web (photo)