Labyrinth Spider

• Its web does not catch by stickiness but because insects falling onto the sheet cannot get airborne again before the spider arrives.
• The labyrinth of silk tunnels behind the funnel, which gives the species its name, is where the female keeps her egg cocoon.
• Its webs become visible at dawn, when dew condenses on the silk and covers the grassland in white sheets.
• Its web is not sticky: it is a dense sheet of dry silk with a funnel at one end, where the spider waits. When an insect lands on the sheet, she darts out, bites it and drags it into the tube.
• Speed is everything in that system: with no adhesive silk, the prey would escape within seconds if the spider did not get there first.
• The refuge tube extends into a labyrinth of silk galleries among the vegetation, hence its name.
• It is highly sensitive to vibrations of the sheet, and from them can tell the size and position of the prey without seeing it.
• The female builds an egg cocoon protected inside a structure of silk and debris, and guards it until she dies in autumn.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (arachnid)

Habitat and environment

Tall grassland, brambles and low scrub of Europe

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Agelena labyrinthica

Best time: Summer, when its webs show up covered in dew in the morning