Spiders and Wasps Appreciation

[Jag]

I live near an area that was part of the Brood X. I love cicadas. We even have a used book store about an hour from us named after them. In early May they held a little reading session online from their shop all about cicadas and the Brood X and they sell all kinds of cicada bookmarks, necklaces, and such. I remember the first time I saw a cicada when I was little. It was on the tree near our house and my Grandpa explained to me what it was. I thought it was a giant fly. ^^

[Oniya]

I remember collecting the discarded shells when I was a wee Oni.  When my parents moved to the place they're in now, I was in high school, and one of the big broods came out.  One landed on my finger as I was walking down from the bus stop.  I was fine with this until it thought I was a plant.  -__-

[Beorning]

Okay, seeing that this is the dedicated spiders thread, I'd like to ask:

Can anyone explain to me what the actual mouth of a spider is like?

From what I gathered online, it seems that spiders don't have mouths similar to those of vertebrates. A spider's mouth is just a tiny sucking hole / slit. And they eat by liquifying their prey with venom or grinding it into a mushy pulp with their fangs and pedipalps - then, smearing this pulp over their "mouth region" and sucking it in through the hole / slit?

So, if you peek behind these massive fangs, you simply finds some hair and - for the lack of a better approximation - a tiny reverse-anus?

[Oniya]

From the pictures that I've found online, it's not quite configured like that.  It's more linear than round.  Tarantula pictures tend to be the easiest ones to see the structure on, just because they're bigger, and therefore easier to photograph.

[Beorning]

Hmmm. But it's a small slit, right? Not a gaping hole or anything like that?

[Oniya]

Well, you can see it pretty clearly in

this photo

[Beorning]

I think they have some sort of short feeding tube between these hairs...

BTW. Here's something I just found:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLjPd1gKV60

WTF is that last spider? It has a conical butt... I didn't know a thing like that existed!

[Oniya]

From the thumbnail, that looks like a Chinese Hourglass spider (named because the markings on the flat part of its butt look like the circular seals common in Chinese documents - and the overall shape looking like one half of an hourglass.

They use that giant badonkadonk for defense.  If something's after them, they dive into their burrow head-first and plug up the opening with their abdomen, which has evolved into almost a shell.

But speaking of spiders with weird butts, have you seen the Spiny-backed Orbweaver?

[Beorning]

From the thumbnail, that looks like a Chinese Hourglass spider (named because the markings on the flat part of its butt look like the circular seals common in Chinese documents - and the overall shape looking like one half of an hourglass.

They use that giant badonkadonk for defense.  If something's after them, they dive into their burrow head-first and plug up the opening with their abdomen, which has evolved into almost a shell.

Interesting! I did think that this butt looked a bit like a plug...

But speaking of spiders with weird butts, have you seen the Spiny-backed Orbweaver?

That's... a spider?  Looks like some weird Pokemon to me :)

[Hrairoo]

From the thumbnail, that looks like a Chinese Hourglass spider (named because the markings on the flat part of its butt look like the circular seals common in Chinese documents - and the overall shape looking like one half of an hourglass.

They use that giant badonkadonk for defense.  If something's after them, they dive into their burrow head-first and plug up the opening with their abdomen, which has evolved into almost a shell.

But speaking of spiders with weird butts, have you seen the Spiny-backed Orbweaver?

Eeeeeee! *hugs the pointy orbweaver* I love! One of my favourite spiders.

[Beorning]

I held a big spider today!