12 
Psyche 
[March 
the spider attached a dragline to the resting thread and moved rap- 
idly down the capture thread, pulling in the capture thread and 
wadding it up loosely with legs II as it moved. It touched the prey 
one or more times with legs I, probably receiving tactile and chem- 
ical clues as to the identity of the prey, and then turned 180° and 
began wrapping. The wadded up capture thread was transferred 
to legs III and wrapped onto the prey, probably thereby increasing 
the effectiveness of the initial wraps. 
While wrapping, the spider faced away from the prey, holding 
the capture thread just above the prey with one leg I and the prey 
itself with legs II and III. After 20-30 seconds of wrapping, the 
spider cut the capture thread just above and below the prey. It then 
rotated the prey package rapidly with legs II (and the palps?) while 
continuing to wrap by pulling silk out from the spinnerets and 
throwing it onto the prey with legs IV (rotation-wrapping in the 
nomenclature of Robinson and Olazarri 1971). While wrapping 
the prey, the spider spanned the gap between the two ends of the 
capture thread, holding each end with one leg I as do other ulo- 
borids (Marples 1962). 
Stage IV: Transport of prey to the feeding site 
The wrapped prey was transferred to the palps, and the spider 
attached a dragline to the thread she had laid on her way down 
and then to the broken end of the capture thread. After thus re- 
pairing the web, she ran up to the resting thread, holding the prey 
in the palps. Once on the resting thread, the spider transferred the 
prey to the third pair of legs and again wrapped it. She wrapped 
as described above, rotating the prey package with legs II while 
hanging from the resting thread with legs I. After wrapping as long 
as 5 minutes, the spider transferred the prey back to the palps, 
turned facing away from the capture thread, and pulled the resting 
thread with legs I as though testing the tension. She then turned 
180° and resumed a resting posture with one leg I monitoring the 
capture thread. As in other uloborids, the prey package was held 
“overhead” in the palps and chelicerae while the spider fed (Fig 3) 
and re-wrapped several times during the process of feeding. Feeding 
often lasted an hour or more. 
Variations in the prey capture sequence 
We saw several modifications of the basic prey capture sequence 
in M. simus. Small dolichoderine ants were rejected by a spider 
