Ogre-faced spider

The Ogre-faced spiders (Family Deinopidae) consist of stick-like elongate spiders that build unusual webs that they suspend between the front legs. Their excellent night-vision adapted posterior median eyes allow them to cast this net over potential prey items. These eyes are so large in comparison to the other six eyes that the spider seems to have only two eyes. The genus Deinopis is the best known of the genera. It is distributed nearly worldwide in the tropics, from Australia to Africa and the Americas. In Florida, Deinopis often hangs upside-down from a silk line under palmetto fronds during the day. It emerges at night to practice its unusual prey capture method.