The six-spotted fishing spider (Dolomedes triton) is a fairly large semi-aquatic spider that spends most of its time sitting out on floating vegetation on lakes and ponds. They are active hunters of both above- and below-water prey, and they will readily submerge under water and remain there for extended periods if they sense danger. I wanted to see one under water and photograph it, and the resulting pictures are the only ones I know where this is shown for this species. For these pictures a full grown female was photographed in an aquarium. Anyway, here she is above water...
...and here she is under water. As expected she remains coated with a fine film of air.
The aquarium used had a glass bottom, so I could set it up on a stand outside and crawl underneath to photograph her from below. So to be clear, this spider is now under water, sitting underneath a lily pad and buoyantly encased in air. This was strange!
Now you may be wondering about the fish. I had stocked the aquarium with some minnows because these spiders will dive to prey on fish. Much to my surprise, I was nicely successful in documenting this!
Pictures of that will be posted later. Stay tuned!
The fishing spider under water
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The fishing spider under water
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters
Dept. of Still Waters
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Fishing spider
Very nice and a well-executed project.
Mike
Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA