EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Those Eyes!

Unidentified Spider
Otway Range, Victoria, Australia

Explanation:   I am not sure of the identification of this spider I encountered in the Otway Range of southern Victoria, Australia.  But as I stared at it ... 

... it seemed to stare back at me.  

Note the two white spots on its abdomen.  They do look a lot like eyespots that many butterflies have evolved to fool predators.  Further, by its spinneret -- the glad secreting silk lines to form the web -- at the tip of the abdomen, are also two black eye-appearing glands, flanked by two more white spots.  

I don't know if this species has been studied.  There are some interesting cases of other invertebrates evolving mimicry and false anatomical structures as anti-predator adaptations, such as the "two heads" of a hairstreak butterfly evolving to avoid predation by jumping spiders (Sourakov 2013).  

But this species ... ?

Information:
     Sourakov, A.  2013.  Two heads are better than one: false head allows Calycopis cecrops (Lycaenidae) to escape predation by a Jumping Spider, Phidippus pulcherrimus (Salticidae).  Journal of Natural History 47:15-16.