Animals casses

Spiders (Araneae)

Spiders are the biggets oder in the class of Arachnids. Almost 40 000 species of spiders have been identified in the world today and for Croatia some 650 species and subspecies. Spiders play an impotrant role in virtually all terrestrial ecosystems and in the underground habitats also.

Most spiders live for about a year and through several moults (shedding of old chitinous exoskeleton) they reach the adult stage when they become sexually mature. All spiders produce silk (from organs called spinnerets) and they use it to build webs on which they spend most of their lives. Silk is also used for traping insects and other pray, for traveling on longer distances and to aid in climbing, to form smooth walls for burrows, for building egg sacs and lots of other things. Spiders are predatory and they hunt their pray on the ground or catch it in a web.

Many troglophile and trogloxene spiders can be seen in cave entrance and twilight zones, for example spiders from genus Meta. Further in the caves, in the area of total darkness, live troglobite spiders that are well adapted to the underground conditions. Some of them build nets on the walls of the cave chambers and between the boulders on the cave floor, and others dwell under stones or on the walls of underground passages where they hunt their prey (family Dysderidae).

Currently, more then 65 cavernicolous taxa form 11 families are recognised for Croatian fauna and more then 50% of them are endemic to Croatia. The most widespread is the family Linyphiidae (sheet weavers or money spiders) and it`s genus Troglohyphantes which accounts for 22 taxa. Other significant families are Dysderidae, Nesticidae, Leptonetidae and Agelenidae. There are 37 cave spider species and subspecies described from caves in Croatia, 30 of which are troglobite and 30 are endemic for Croatia. Most of them live on very restricted area.

Devastation of underground habitats inevitably threatens spiders and other cave animals. 12 spider taxa are listed in the Red book of underground fauna of Croatia.

Contact:

Martina Pavlek -
Roman Ozimec -