Predação de Anfíbio por Aranha Orb-Weaver

Prévia do material em texto

While on one hand spiders are commonly preyed 
by a wide variety of anuran amphibians, on the other 
spiders also prey on anuran amphibians. In several 
cases it is just a matter of prey-predator size relation or 
frog development stage. For instance, while juvenile 
Leptodactylus latrans are preyed by adult lycosid 
spiders (Hogna sp.), adult individuals of this frog species 
can prey upon these spiders (Giambelluca et al., 2010). 
Most of the spiders that have been reported to feed on 
anurans are ambush predators on the ground or on the 
water surface. They belong to the families Pisauridae, 
Ctenidae, Lycosidae, Sparassidae, and Theraphosidae 
(Menin et al., 2005; Toledo et al., 2007; Bovo et al., 
2014). These kinds of spiders represent only a small 
part of the worldwide spider diversity (World Spider 
Catalog, 2019). Several spiders spin orb-webs to catch 
all kinds of flying insects; however, they are seldom 
reported to capture frogs or other vertebrates (Nyffeler 
and Birkhofer, 2017). 
Here, we document a predation event involving a 
spider (predator) and a frog (prey) observed under 
natural conditions. On 15 November 2011, around 
20:00 h local time, during an amphibian survey at a 
temporary pond in a cocoa plantation located behind 
the campus of the Universidade Estadual de Santa 
Cruz (14°47’45’’S, 39°10’20’’W), Municipality of 
Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil, we found a dead adult individual 
of Dendropsophus haddadi inside an orb-web of the 
spider Parawixia kochi about 150 cm above the ground 
(Fig. 1). The spider had already poisoned the frog, spun 
several layers of silk fibers around it and was feeding 
on it. As we were not able to determine the sex of the 
frog, based on the approximate size we inferred it was 
an adult individual of Dendropsophus haddadi (SVL 
range: 16.7–20.8 mm). This hylid species lays eggs 
Herpetology Notes, volume 12: 629-630 (2019) (published online on 18 June 2019)
Predation on Dendropsophus haddadi (Anura, Hylidae) by 
the orb-web spider Parawixia kochi (Araneae, Araneidae) 
in a cacao plantation in southern Bahia, Brazil
Marcelo Sena1 and Mirco Solé 1,2,*
1 Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Programa de Pós-
graduação em Zoologia, Universidade Estadual de Santa 
Cruz, Rodovia Jorge Amado, Km 16, Salobrinho, Ilhéus, 
Bahia 45662-900, Brazil.
2 Herpetology Section, Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum 
Alexander Koenig, Adenauerallee 160, D-53113 Bonn, 
Germany.
* Corresponding author. E-mail: msole@uesc.br
Figure 1. Orb-web spider Parawixia kochi preying upon 
an adult Dendropsophus haddadi. The orb web was 150 cm 
above the ground, between the roots of a fallen tree, near the 
edge of a temporary pond.
Marcelo Sena & Mirco Solé630
on leaves outside the water, and has previously been 
recorded from Espirito Santo State to Pernambuco 
State (Araújo-Neto et al., 2012). The species is very 
common in southern Bahia and during the night of our 
observation several male individuals were calling from 
the marginal pond vegetation and some couples forming 
amplexi could also be observed a few meters from the 
place where the predation event took place. Parawixia 
kochi is a spider with nocturnal habits that can be found 
from the Amazon basin in Venezuela to the state of 
Paraná in Brazil (Levi, 2002). Other reports of anuran 
predation by spiders that weave orbs include Eriophora 
fuliginea capturing Ololygon littoralis at Ubatuba, São 
Paulo, Brazil (Muscat et al., 2014) and Scinax similis 
at Poço das Antas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Kirchmeyer 
et al., 2017), and Eriophora sp. consuming Teratohyla 
spinosa at Tirimbina Biological Reserve in Costa Rica 
(Folt and Lapinski, 2017). According to Toledo (2005) 
the risk of predation by invertebrates is greater during 
two specific phases of their life cycle: the breeding 
season and during or shortly after their metamorphosis. 
Our observation was done near a pond where individuals 
of D. haddadi were calling to attract potential mating 
partners. We think that our finding supports the first 
assumption of Toledo (2005) that the preyed frog was 
probably showing increased motor activity due to calling 
performance or was captured while on its way towards 
or away from the pond. To our knowledge, this is the 
first record of an orb-web spider of the genus Parawixia 
capturing and feeding on an anuran within its web. 
Acknowledgements. We thank Fabrício Hiroiuki Oda and Rudolf 
von May for very useful comments on the manuscript. The 
spider was identified by Antonio Domingos Brescovit (Instituto 
Butantan, São Paulo). 
References
Araújo-Neto, J.V., Silva, B.V.M., Galdino, J.Y.A., Nascimento, 
F.A.C., Lisboa, B.S. (2012): New records and geographic 
distribution map of Dendropsophus haddadi (Bastos and 
Pombal, 1996) (Anura: Hylidae) with comments on color 
patterns. Check List 8: 248–250.
Bovo, R.P., de Oliveira, E.G., Bandeira, L.N. (2014): Predation 
on two Dendropsophus species (Anura: Hylidae) by a pisaurid 
spider in the Atlantic Forest, southeastern Brazil. Herpetology 
Notes 7: 329–331.
Folt, B., Lapinski, W. (2017): New observations of frog and lizard 
predation by wandering and orb-weaver spiders in Costa Rica. 
Phyllomedusa 16: 269–277.
Giambelluca, L.A., Rodríguez, R, Arias, D., González, A. (2010): 
Supervivencia de Hogna sp. (Araneae: Lycosidae) depredada por 
Leptodactylus ocellatus. Boletín de la Asociación Herpetológica 
Española 21: 53–55.
Kirchmeyer, J., Amaral, L.C., Magaldi, A., Baptista, R.L.C., 
Carvalho-e-Silva, S.P. (2017): Predation on the treefrog Scinax 
similis (Anura: Hylidae) by the orb-weaver spider Eriophora 
fuliginea (Araneae: Araneidae) in southeastern Brazil. 
Phyllomedusa 16: 113–116.
Levi, H.W. (2002): Keys to the genera of araneid orbweavers 
(Araneae, Araneidae) of the Americas. The Journal of 
Arachnology 30: 527–562.
Menin, M., Rodrigues, D.J., Azevedo, C.S. (2005): Predation on 
amphibians by spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) in the Neotropical 
region. Phyllomedusa 4: 39–47.
Muscat, E., Rotenberg, E.L., Chagas, C.A. (2014): Predation 
of Scinax littoralis (Anura: Hylidae) by Eriophora fuliginea 
(Arenae: Araneidae) in southeastern Brazil. Herpetology Notes 
7: 169–170.
Nyffeler, M., Birkhofer, K. (2017): An estimated 400-800 million 
tons of prey are annually killed by the global spider community. 
The Science of Nature 104: 30
Toledo, L.F. (2005): Predation of juvenile and adult anurans 
by invertebrates: current knowledge and perspectives. 
Herpetological Review 36: 395–400. 
Toledo, L.F., Ribeiro, R.S., Haddad, C.F.B. (2007): Anurans as 
prey: an exploratory analysis and size relationships between 
predators and their prey. Journal of Zoology 271: 170–177.
World Spider Catalog (2019): World Spider Catalog. Version 19.5. 
Natural History Museum Bern. Available at: http://wsc.nmbe.
ch. Accessed on 15 January 2019.
Accepted by Fabrício Oda