1980] 
Coddington & Valerio — Wendilgarda Spiders 
103 
in twenty minutes. ft takes them an average of four minutes to build a 
web, and as little as one minute to construct the sticky lines for any 
one horizontal line. This rate of web replacement is unusually high 
among spiders, but is apparently necessary in the constantly changing 
environment in which Wendilgarda spiders build. As described 
above, the normal vagaries of stream current and height are often 
sufficient to pop sticky line attachments and consequently to render 
webs ineffectual. 
Of more interest, perhaps, are the overall large fluctuations to 
which many of these tropical streams are subject. Quebrada el Sura at 
La Selva, for example, routinely fluctuates a meter or more in height 
in response to the frequent rains, and, during more intense storms has 
raised 4-5 meters above its normal height, with a concomitant 
increase in flow rate (Thomas Ray, Cathy Andrews, pers. comm.). 
There is an obvious question as to where Wendilgarda spiders go 
during such high water periods. It is possible that they spin retreats on 
shore at the normal level of shoreline and simply wait out the flood 
under water, but, given the violence of the floods, it seems more likely 
that they would have to move to dry ground in order to survive. 
During major storms the distance involved could easily amount to 
ten meters. However, despite extensive searches we never found 
Wendilgarda spiders with webs on dry land. What taxes in the 
behavior of the spider permit such movement, or the relocation of the 
stream after a storm, are unknown. 
Discussion 
There is reason to suspect that all species of Wendilgarda spin such 
webs. Eugene Simon saw webs of Wendilgarda theridionina Simon in 
Venezuela. In 1895 he wrote:"... the web of Vendilgarda [sic], strung 
beneath the vault of humid rocks, which overhang torrents and pools, 
is a small, very elementary network, composed of a few threads 
radiating with little regularity, offering only the vaguest lineaments of 
a orb web.” (p. 916). Petrunkevitch (1930), describing the web of the 
same species in Puerto Rico wrote: “Spiders of both sexes live in 
dense woods, spinning their threads between rocks over brooks. 
These threads are so fine that it is impossible to see them, and the 
spider has the appearance of being suspended in the air without any 
support” (p. 301). It also is possible that Petrunkevitch was observing 
the web of W. mexicana Keyserling, since the species are difficult to 
