Darwin’s bark spider “Caerostris darwini“

Filmed in Madagascar by Matjaz Gregoric, this video shows a Darwin’s bark spider subduing a dragonfly on her web. Females of this newly named (2010) species, “Caerostris darwini,“ cast giant webs across streams, rivers and lakes, suspending the web’s orb above water and attaching it to plants on each riverbank. Bridgelines of these water-spanning webs have been measured as long as 25 meters. Studies of the silk of these spiders by Matjaz Kuntner and Ingi Agnarsson, research collaborators of the Smithsonian