1986] 
Opell — Web-monitoring by Miagrammopes 
169 
Figure 1 . Adult female Miagrammopes sp. feeding on a small beetle held with the 
pedipalps while monitoring an attachment line of the capture web. Setal tufts at the 
distal end of the extended first legs make them resemble the moss to which the web is 
attached. Scale bar represents 2 mm. 
by thread. To one set of opposite vertical elements were wired moss- 
covered cacao twigs and to the other set, bare cacao twigs. All twigs 
were taken from the same tree and had a diameter of about 7 mm. 
Two of the four frames employed bare twigs that had no evidence of 
moss cover and two twigs whose moss covering was removed with- 
out damage to the bark. Frames hung 98 cm apart along a taut, 
north-south suspension line. To account for the possible influence 
of air currents, frames were oriented so that the moss-covered twigs 
occupied alternate sectors (East and West sectors, North and South 
sectors, etc.). 
From 26 June until 6 July 1985, these frames hung in the aban- 
doned cacao plantation from which specimens were collected. From 
7-15 July 1985, these study frames were transferred to a roofed 
enclosure (cabina) whose screened north, east, and south walls were 
covered with light colored curtains to exclude direct sunlight. Here, 
frame orientation and spacing were identical to that described 
above. In this enclosure, spiders were exposed only to natural light. 
Each frame’s bare and moss-covered twigs were watered daily at 
about 8:30 and 13:00. At the end of the study, moss on the twigs 
showed no signs of thinning or turning brown and bare twigs 
showed no signs of moss growth. 
