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Comments & ID Thoughts
Found next to what is believed to be an African Argiope (see separate upload prior to this post). Could this be an egg sac?
- Submitted by:
- Submitted: Nov 20, 2023
- Photographed: Nov 15, 2023
- Spider: Insects
- Location: Harare, Zimbabwe
- Spotted Outdoors: Man-made structure (building wall, fences, etc.),Low foliage (shrubs, herbs, garden, excluding flowers)
- Found in web?: Yes
- Attributes:
Nov 18, 2023
Nov 18, 2023
Durban, 
Help identify this spider
That is an interesting looking thing but I have no idea what it is. I can’t find nay pictures of the egg sacs of A levii or flavipalpis but there’s lots of pics of the egg sacs of others in the family. And none look anything like that. I don’t think it is the egg sac of a spider. There’s generally a lot of silk involved.
Ya we had a feeling it may be a coincidence but was worth checking! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I can’t believe that none of us have ever seen these spiders before. My parents, sister, her husband, and I, have lived in Zim 200 years between us. None of us have seen anything like it in all those combined years but we see Golden Orb Spiders (as we know them) all the time. Odd! Perhaps we have a predator it doesn’t like…
You are really lucky to have them. We have nothing that beautiful in Ireland where I come from. I scoured the internet looking to see if I could figure out what this is – the best I can come up with is the egg case -or ootheca – of a praying mantis or some related insect – I could not find any pictures of African species so here is an American one https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/7828414
It looks to be a sort of mantis oothica (egg cae) dosnt look like it has hatched yet.
It’s interesting. I’ll file it under Insects. While I was searching it a found another website link for my collection. I save links to attempts to catalogue all known species of a type or of a place. This one https://www.marinespecies.org/index.php is a catalog of known marine species of all kinds.
I used to be more into marine animal life but not very active the last decade.
I’ll add this link to my research profile. Thanks.
Reason I spotted the oothica is back in the 60s I found one and kept it indoors.
A mistake learned the hard way. Hundreds of mantis hatchlings in my room and out of season.
Oh Lordy. 🙂