1980] 
Eberhard — Bolas Spider 
163 
canned string beans. When spiders were observed under the micro¬ 
scope it was clear that the odor was produced by the regurgitation of a 
drop of cloudy liquid at the mouth. When the disturbance had passed 
the spider sucked the liquid back in and cleaned its mouthparts and 
the smell vanished. Hutchinson (1903) also noted that disturbed M. 
cornigera produced an unpleasant odor which came from a drop at 
the mouth. 
Discussion 
Robinson and Robinson (1975) suggested, on the basis of their 
study of Pasilobus and Clyne’s work (1973) on Poecilopachys, that 
there is an evolutionary series starting with typical orb weavers and 
passing through Poecilopachys and then Pasilobus to the bolas 
spiders Mastophora, Dichrostichus, and Cladomelea. They estab¬ 
lished several links in web architecture and function between 
Poecilopachys and Pasilobus. The results of this study support this 
general scheme and indicate that the line can be reasonably extended 
through the bolas spiders to the webless araneids Celaenia and 
Taczanowskia. This series does not of course purport to demonstrate 
that any group is directly descended from any other, but rather refers 
to increasing specialization of prey catching behavior which diverges 
in this group of genera from the ancestral construction of typical orb 
webs. 
There are several points of similarity between these observations ol 
M. dizzydeani and the data available for Pasilobus sp. (Robinson and 
Robinson 1975), Poecilopachys australasia (Clyne 1973), and the 
related Cyrtarachne sp. (Eberhard unpub.): 
A. All actively pull sticky silk from their spinnerets while hanging 
more or less vertically below a horizontal thread (e.g. Fig. 4B in 
Robinson and Robinson 1975). This movement is similar to 
and was probably derived from the pulling movements many 
araneids make with legs IV as they lay sticky spirals (Robinson 
and Robinson 1975, Eberhard in prep.). The Robinsons were 
not certain that thread (as opposed to only vicous material) was 
being pulled out by Pasilobus, but from their description, 
personal observations of Cyrtarachne and Mastophora( above), 
and considerations discussed in Eberhard (1976 and in prep.), 
this seems to me to be likely. 
B The M. dizzydeani web which had several balls hanging from a 
