| Buzzing Spider (Anyphaena accentuata (Walckenaer, 1802)) |
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Scientific name: Anyphaena accentuata (Walckenaer, 1802) Common name: Buzzing Spider French name: Anyphène à chevrons, Araignée bourdonnante. Order: Araneae Family: Anyphaenidae Size: 5 to 9 mm for females; 4 to 7 mm for males. Biotope: Deciduous and mixed forests, bushes. These spiders live and hunt in the foliage of trees up to the top. They hide, during the day, between two leaves attached by silk threads or inside a rolled leaf. They hunt during the night. Web: No web. Observation period: Females are active from spring to autumn and then go down to shelter next to the ground, under the bark of dead trees per example. It is easier to observe them during this season. Geographic area: Europe east to central Asia, Iran. |
Female Buzzing Spiders are a yellowish to pale brown colour. The abdomen shows two pairs of black central marks, angled to form two small chevrons. The cephalothorax shows two dark lateral bands marked with paler spots which can draw some kind of a serrated line. The legs are slightly marbled, the femora are yellow, the chelicerae are yellowish. Males have a thinner abdomen, longer legs and show more contrasted colours. The common name of Buzzing Spider comes from the audible sound emitted by males by vibrating their abdomens at the surface of leaves to attract females. There are 4 other species of the same genus listed as present in France, that's to say Anyphaena alboirrorata, Anyphaena numida, Anyphaena sabina and Anyphaena pontica. Data about their geographical range (maybe not very recent) restrict their presence to the Mediterranean regions. |
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This spider has used my compost tank to shelter during winter. The markings on the abdomen are clearly visible on this picture. |
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Here is another view of the same specimen with the pattern on the cephalothorax. |
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Here is a picture showing the eye pattern with two rows of four eyes of equal size, those of the posterior row (top row) being more distant from each other. |
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Here is another observation on the wall of the house. |
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I have first thought this one was a male based on the contrasted colours. However the pedipalps with non-swollen tips seem to indicate one female. |
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Front view. |
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I had to walk out of my garden to find a male. I have observed this one along a woodland edge at about two or three kilometres away from my home. |
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Front view. The sharpness is not perfect because of a slight moving blur. I will have to buy a more recent digital camera which now provides an acceptable image quality with high sensitivity settings. |
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Here is one male observed in my garden, in fact on the wall of the house! |
André Bon November 2020