This spider lives in an airbubble in the ditch.
Its a juwel to look at, and its a hard working spider;
It collects air on the surface and transports it to
its airbubble.
Most of the time it spends it time waiying in the bubble.
But at night it swims around in the aquarium hunting
for small fish.
the airbubble
The bubble is anchored on the stem and leaves of
waterplants. If a spider is young it hunts on Waterfleas or Daphnia
If the ditch contains a lot of oxygen the bubble wont loose
its oxygen fastly and the spider can spend its time on hunting.
The biggest enemie is the water tiger
in the aquarium
The water spider is a living juwel in youre native aquarium
but its a succesfull predator : sometimes a small fish or newt
disappears.
Pondlife in a healthy pond.
1 Edible frog (Rana esculenta)
2 Brown frag (Rana temporalis)
3 Frogfish
4 great diving beetle (Dytiscus marginalis)
5 Waterspider (Argyroneta aquatica)
6 common newt (Triturus vulgaris)
7 European grass snake (Natix natrix)
8 larval stage of Caddisflies or sedge-flies (Trichoptera)
1 Eurasian water milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum)
2 spatterdock or yellow water-lily (Nuphar luteum)
3Common Water Crowfoot (Batrachium aquatilis)
4 Water-starwort or water-chickweed. (Callitriche verna)
The waterspider, an illustration made in 1920.
A girl looks at the aquarium , around 1900.
At that time, an aquarium had no electrical cleaning
pomps , lamps and sieves,no temperature control,
and the water is cleaned by the roots of the fern.
These natural aquaria were common around the fin
du siecle, and were inhibited by the diving beetle,
salamanders. frogfish, stickelbacks and the waterspider.
The waterspider is an easy housepet, and can be
feed with a lot of freshwater animals, like
the larvae of waterinsects, frogfish, small fish etc.
Pondlife in a healthy pond.
The waterspider, an illustration made in 1920.
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