Packaging their presents in silk means more time between the sheets for some eight-legged lovers
FOR those of us with clumsy hands, Christmas is a nightmare. It is a time when we encase the gifts that we so thoughtfully bought in an embarrassing mess of crumpled paper and badly placed tape. Perhaps our jobs would be easier if we had eight eyes, eight hands and could extrude our own wrapping paper.
Meet the male nursery web spider. This rather drab looking fellow spends his life in rough grassland and woodland across Europe hunting for insects, which he gives to females in the mating season. When he finds a suitable present, a juicy fly or a mealworm, he paralyses it with his venom. He then carefully wraps the fresh insect in reams of silk, crushing it into a round white ball, ...
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