Scytodes sp.

[Anubis]

I find these guys crawling around the house every once in a while. This is the first one that hasn't been the typical color of Scytodes thoracica.







It looks like a xenomorph from Aliens with that jet black carapace. Fitting that it spits a poisonous mixture over its prey too.

[Wade Harrell]

WHOA! A black spitter! I've never seen such a thing. That's an awsome find, I get excited when I see the regular ones!

Nice pictures of it too.

Wade

[Anubis]

I'm not sure if it's a different species or just a color form. I have a plain male S. thoracica that I was considering breeding to this unless she's already gravid.

[Bill S]

Scytodes univittata is easy to breed in captivity. Hopefully your "black beauty" will be similar. Courtship involves the male and female batting at each other with their front legs, then the female flips over backwards and mating takes place. Mom carries the egg clutch under her until they hatch.

Have you been able to watch them hunting? It's a quick process - spider sits on a rock waiting for prey to walk by. When it does, the glue/venom mixture is launched in about a tenth of a second. Suddenly you've got a cricket stuck to the rock.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Bill S

Scytodes univittata is easy to breed in captivity. Hopefully your "black beauty" will be similar. Courtship involves the male and female batting at each other with their front legs, then the female flips over backwards and mating takes place. Mom carries the egg clutch under her until they hatch.

Have you been able to watch them hunting? It's a quick process - spider sits on a rock waiting for prey to walk by. When it does, the glue/venom mixture is launched in about a tenth of a second. Suddenly you've got a cricket stuck to the rock.

So I guess breeding a male Scytodes thoracica to this would be a bad idea. I didn't know we had more than one species here. Would you know what the males look like?

Way back when I was starting out in the hobby, I collected S. thoracica around the house. Watching them hunt was entertaining.

[Bill S]

The dark one that you have might be Scytodes fusca. S. thoracica is usually lighter in color. However, that's a group of spiders that needs some work. Some people think that there are a number of undescribed species around. Complicating things is the fact that they seem to get spread around pretty easily. For example, the Scytodes univittata found in Colossal Cave (and identified by California Academy of Sciences arachnologist Darrell Ubick) is an Asian species that has been spread throughout the tropics. There's at least one record of it having been found in Los Angeles - but how it got to Colossal Cave is a puzzle.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Bill S

The dark one that you have might be Scytodes fusca. S. thoracica is usually lighter in color. However, that's a group of spiders that needs some work. Some people think that there are a number of undescribed species around. Complicating things is the fact that they seem to get spread around pretty easily. For example, the Scytodes univittata found in Colossal Cave (and identified by California Academy of Sciences arachnologist Darrell Ubick) is an Asian species that has been spread throughout the tropics. There's at least one record of it having been found in Los Angeles - but how it got to Colossal Cave is a puzzle.

S. fusca is a Florida native, right?

Colossal Cave's a heavy tourist destination. Could have been a hitchhiker. Seems like there would be sufficient opportunity for them to do so.

[Bill S]

Originally Posted by Anubis

S. fusca is a Florida native, right?

Specimens from Florida have been posted on Bugguide, but no reason to assume it's limited to Florida. It's been documented from New Mexico, although it was assumed to have been introduced. Scytodes seem to be good at travelling.

edit: I just found a reference that shows S. fusca as widely spread through southeast Asia, Australia, etc. Looks like it's a world traveller.

Colossal Cave's a heavy tourist destination. Could have been a hitchhiker. Seems like there would be sufficient opportunity for them to do so.

It no doubt hitchhiked in at some point - but probably not with tourists. The layout of Colossal Cave is sort of like the letter "A". The tourist section is the lower left leg of the "A", Scytodes (and other interesting arachnids) are found in the lower right leg of the "A". So are the larger bat populations. The top of the "A" is deep cave and doesn't appear to be biologically active, and the crossbar is biologically active but has not been adequately studied.

The eastern section (right leg) was mined for bat guano about a century ago, and I've wondered if that was when Scytodes might have been introduced.