Re: Spiders or mites inside succulent seedpod?

That's not a seed pod!  That's the sort of pouch mommy spiders make for their babies.  It is called an egg sac.
Cathy
On Feb 3, 2007, at 4:20 PM, Richard Starkeson wrote:

I encountered a 6-foot plant in Mexico in December  (don't have a photo, and can't give a good description now), (succulent, cactus or euphorb -  that narrows it down to about 1000 species), with what looked like clusters of small round seedpods at the top - dried and weathered, about 0.5 cm id diameter.  I picked one, and later opened it up, looking for seeds - instead found what looked like a mass of insect eggs and along with what looked like baby spiders, brownish,  about 0.5 mm in size, a couple slightly larger that were red-orange looking, and a mass of webbing..
Photos (not a good enough lens for this sort of thing, but - - ) at
http://public.fotki.com/richard1124/insects/hatching-in-seedpod/

Does anyone know what these were, and what happened to the seeds that one would have expected to find in the seedpod?
I didn't think spiders or mites ate seeds.
Spiders?  Mites?  Predatory mites?







Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index