Incredible close-up of spider silk wins science photo prize

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Predation by Pholcus spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) on tarantulas (Araneae: Theraphosidae)

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Pet theraphosid spiders as prey of Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 in captivity in Poland.
1. Hapalopus formosus; 2. Monocentropus balfouri; 3. Caribena versicolor.

Predation by Pholcus spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) on tarantulas (Araneae: Theraphosidae)

Synanthropic species of spiders – those that live in associationwith or benefit from humans and their environments – mayhunt various types of arthropods inside houses (Uhlenhaut, 2001).Among other taxa, numerous species of synantrhopic spiders preyon other spiders. This feeding behaviour is particularly common in spiders of the genus Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805, which havebeen observed preying on a variety of araneomorph spider taxa (Uhlenhaut, 2001; Sherwood, 2019). In Poland, the genus Pholcus is represented by three species (Nentwig et al., 2024).

Szymański, Dawid & Szymański, Dominik. (2025). Predation by Pholcus spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) on tarantulas(Araneae: Theraphosidae). Newsletter of the British Arachnological Society 163: Summer 20225