EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Down in the Funnel

Funnel Web Spider, Family Agelenidae
Pattekhet village, Modi River Valley, Nepal

Explanation:  This unidentified arachnid graced the ground along the steep winding trail into the remote Gurung village of Pattekhet, in the Modi River Valley of the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. 

Funnel web spiders build, well, webs with funnels and tunnels.  The webs look chaotic but have structure and a purpose to help hide the spider from its own predators and from its prey upon which the spiders can lunge and ambush.  

Funnel web spiders are indeed predators themselves, much like wolf spiders and others of the order Araneae.  Note how their eyes are positioned high and in front of their heads, typical for predatory spiders:

        
In fact, you can tell by the eye position that this funnel web spider indeed is of family Agelenidae, in that it has two rows of eyes curved around its head, with the outer eyes set laterally on the head.  These spiders also are strongly marked with longitudinal stripes on the body (cephalothorax).