WildBristol.uk - Discovering Wildlife in Bristol

Widespread and locally throughout the UK. Habitat includes: Wet places with emergent vegetation such as sedges, reeds and other wetland grasses but also at drier sites for example wetlands, water margins, ditches, coastal grazing marsh saltmarsh edge, roadside verges, railway banks, wasteland etc. Other names include: Furrow Spider, Furrow Orb Spider, Foliate Spider. Body length: Female = 6 - 14 mm, Male = 5 - 9 mm. Leg span: 18 - 35 mm. Life story: They hide during the day in a silken tube like sack that opens at the bottom, masked with plant and animal matter and leave it during the night. The web is remade in the evening. Unlike many other species of spider, L. cornutus does not hibernate in winter, and instead has an annual cycle of seasonal resistance. While their supercooling point in summer is -8 °C, in winter it drops to -20 °C. During the breeding season (spring and autumn) females create a silk cocoon in which she emits pheromones to lure males, who can sense them through chemoreceptors. The males insert sperm using their pedipalps, and fertilise the eggs of the female. These become yellow egg sacs. The female can produce three to five yellow egg sacs during the summer. Males normally die after mating, which is often a result of the female eating the male. The male lives with the female during mating time.