Common Lynx Spider - Oxyopes sp.
FAMILY OXYOPIDAE
This page contains pictures and information about Common Lynx Spiders that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Leg to leg 20mm
- Lynx Spiders are long legs spiders, small in size. The spiders are common in Brisbane garden. They do not build web but hunt small insects on plants.
- Female Male
- Lynx Spiders have very good vision although their eyes are relatively small. They have eight eyes, in the pattern four rows of two. The above pictures, left picture shows a female and right picture shows a male. The male has larger pedipalps, which are used for transferring sperm during mating.
- Lynx Spiders can be found on trees or grasses, usually on the top of the plants. They are active in day time hunting small insects. They have a long body and long thin legs with long spines. They are colourful with green-yellow, silver and brown bands along their bodies. They hunt in the ways like a cat, i.e., slowly approach the prey and suddenly jump to it. So the spiders have their name Lynx.
- 14/03/2001 27/03/2001
- Lynx Spider showing its parental care, guarding her eggs, two weeks later, guarding her children. This is common in the spider world. Lynx Spiders do not build web nor retreat but make egg sac on leaves.
- Their eyes have the characteristic pattern of four rows of two.
- The line patterns on those Lynx Spiders we found were either black or orange-red. Since they were found in the same place in our backyard, we believed they are the same species in two colour forms.
- Reference:
- 1. A Guide to Australian Spiders - Densey Clyne, Melbourne, Nelson 1969, p43.
- 2. Wildlife of Greater Brisbane - Queensland Museum 1995, p31.
- 3. Lynx spider - The Find-a-spider Guide for Australian Spiders, University of Southern Queensland, 2007
