Curved Spiny Spider

Art

paint the cricket

Animal

photo by Malaysian Spiders

The curved spiny spider (Gasteracantha arcuata) is a small orb weaver with a spiny abdomen from southeast Asia. They are sexually dimorphic, the males are much smaller and lack the giant horns. It is thought that the horns make them less palatable to predators. They have a tendency to build their webs in places where they might be disturbed by flying birds so they will actually build visible tuffs of silk into the web, it is theorized that these help the birds avoid their webs.