1967] 
Eberhard — Diguetid Spiders 
179 
weavers’ actions). The line was then attached to the prey and the 
platform again, and the spider left the prey dangling there as it 
rushed off to the second attack. Wrapping behavior often occurred 
just after the spider returned from an attack even in the absence of 
a second prey. 
The actions involved in wrapping the prey were invariable, and 
to my knowledge, unique to the Diguetidae. The spider lowered itself 
until just the extended legs IV were holding the platform. With 
its abdomen bent at about 90° to its cephalothorax, the spider took 
the prey from its chelicerae and pressed it to its spinnerets with legs 
I, II, and III. It made one or more attachments to the prey, then 
rotated it slowly with these legs and laid a line around it. Additional 
attachments were sometimes made as the prey was turned. The 
number of turns was roughly dependent on the size of the prey and 
was usually between two and ten. Fig. 2 shows a Diguetia albolineata 
in the wrapping posture. 
The aggressive use of silk by araneids and uloborids may be an 
elaboration of behavior like that of the diguetids. In the diguetids 
wrapping served only to anchor an already immobilized prey, whereas 
it was one of the chief means of immobilization for the orb weavers. 
The change from post-immobilization wrapping like that of the 
diguetids to uloborid-like immobilization wrapping would involve 
1. wrapping at the site of capture, 2. wrapping the prey before it 
was immobilized by poison, and 3. applying greater quantities of silk 
to the prey. None of these steps involves elaborate behavior patterns 
not shown by the diguetids, and in fact under some conditions (large, 
strong prey) they will perform step 1. 
The behavior of spiders in the family Linyphiidae gives another 
indication that the change from post immobilization to immobiliza- 
tion wrapping can occur easily. The linyphiids are allies of the 
Araneidae with web spinning and prey wrapping habits similar to 
those of the Diguetidae. They often applied a number of loops of 
silk to prey after it had been bitten, pulled through the web plat- 
forny and carried back to the center of the web. Their behavior 
differed from that of the diguetids in that they wrapped the prey 
much more often at the site of capture (always after biting it), and 
laid a longer line of silk onto the prey. Also, wrapping behavior 
was not as consistently released by the presence of another prey on 
the web. The first two differences indicate that silk is more of an 
offensive weapon for these linyphiids than for the diguetids. How- 
ever, they applv less silk, and use it later in the attack seauence than 
