Margherita Standing, Magnificent Spider with globule (ANIMAL 2025)

I first noted the egg sacs but could not capture a photograph the mother spider that was always hiding in her nest. With some research (thanks to Australian Museum site) I found out she only comes out at night. “This sticky silk globule may contain pheromones that mimic the scent of a certain female noctuid moth species, attracting unwary male moths within range (known as 'aggressive mimicry'). The Magnificent Spider is very sensitive to vibrations, twirling its thread when it senses the approach of a moth's beating wings. The moth eventually flutters close enough to be hit by and become stuck to the globule. The spider then pulls up the strand, bites and immobilises the moth, and either eats it straight away or stores it for later, wrapped in silk. The mother spider usually dies off over winter. The baby spiders emerge in late winter to early spring and disperse by ballooning” – Australian Museum

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.