1980] 
Coddington & Valerio — Wendilgarda Spiders 
101 
Figure 4. An insect exuvium caught in a Wendilgarda web. The web has been 
dusted with cornstarch to heighten contrast. Scale 5 mm. 
other horizontal lines composing the web. It would then attach a 
new silk line to the web behind it, and progress towards the 
stimulus by pulling itself along the old horizontal line, reeling up 
the old line as it went. The disposition of old and new silk is only 
possible if the web has been lightly dusted with cornstarch before 
the spider starts to spin the new horizontal line. With this 
treatment, the old line is dusted and therefore visible while the new 
line is very difficult to see. It is possible that the presence of 
cornstarch on the web affects the spider’s behavior, but when the 
same attack sequence was seen on unstarched webs the movements 
of the spider’s legs appeared comparable. We have no observa¬ 
tions to suggest that the actions of spiders on dusted and undusted 
webs differ for this particular behavioral sequence. 
This pattern of approach on the horizontal line is significant 
because the spider did not reel in the sticky lines of the web as it 
progressed, but only the horizontal segments between them. 
