Leijpark013

@leijpark013 · 04 Aug 2021

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Leijpark 013 August 4, 2021 toothjaw spider

#leijpark013   #tandcaakspin #spin
Listing by Thierry P. Dinjens · 2 hours ·
Before we go to the Leijpark, we take a surprising turn and we go to a random Christmas party two hundred years ago. Around that time, the candy cane was invented, which looked (and looks) like a curved rod. Two hundred years ago, the staff was completely white and straight, but a sweetmaker in America wanted to trace Christmas candy to the true nature of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. What did he do?? He made a letter 'J' out of it. Conversely, it seems like a staff, but it's basically a letter. He provided that letter with a number of red stripes; the stretch marks on the back of Jesus when he was flogged at the end of his life. Whoever ate this candy could not help but dwell on why behind the life and suffering of the Messiah.
The red line is still found on the traditional candy cane, but also on other sweets. The Americans aptly call this a 'candy stripe' (candy stripe). Because there is a spider that shows the same stripes, it is called the 'Candy stripe spider' in English-speaking countries.
We Dutch don't have that spielerei, we're just a little too calvinist for that. We named the spider for its external characteristics, the presence of large jaws with accompanying (poison) teeth. Her name: Regular tooth jaw. That sounds a lot less friendly than candy stripe spider, doesn't it?? And maybe better too, because the spider is not concerned with being friendly.
The Common Tooth Jaw is a Bullet Spin. Bullet spiders are so called because they have a bullet round behind body, and the rear body of the Common tooth jaw looks like a magic ball. The animal is a formidable rover that doesn't shy away from catching wasps. It's even her specialty. She's not going to hang in a skilfully woven web like many spiders do. She confines herself to a few wires that are criss-crossed. What sticks to it is nice, but wasps are dissipated in a very different way.
Wasps eat nectar (among others) and the Ordinary tooth jaw is often found near umbrelars. These are plants that form screens of flowers such as bear claw, wild carrow and whistle. In this, the spider hiding and when a wasp lands to credit the rich nectar, the spider emerges into cowboy (or better: cowgirl). She throws (like with a lasso) with her hind legs spider rag over the wasp, which gets stuck almost immediately. She can't bring in the flurtling insect right away, as wasps can stab. But no worries, if she leaves the animal alone, it will struggle more and more firmly and eventually, even because of exhaustion, will stop. Then she will spray her deadly poison into the wasp, after which she can eat it. A unique but highly effective way of hunting.
In the Leijpark we find the Ordinary tooth jaw between the white screen flowers of a bear claw, where she is flanging an unordered web. The red candy stripes are clearly visible. For a moment we dream of candy canes, but we will never forget what the real meaning of it is. That's always sticking to us.