Puppet master

QPIETER BROERE from Pretoria writes: I photographed this black widow spider catching a toktokkie in my garage. It looks like the spider somehow tied the beetle’s legs together. Is this to pull the toktokkie into its web, or to make it easier to control?

AEntomologist DUNCAN MACFADYEN says: This is actually a brown button spider. It can be differentiated from the similar-looking black button spider (black widow) by the distinctive red hourglass on its abdomen. Button spiders are theridiidae, commonly known as gum-foot web spiders. They spin an irregular web, coated with sticky droplets. Unsuspecting insects get caught on the sticky droplets. The spider then secures the prey, cuts the thread and hoists it up. The brown button spider also produces a neurotoxic venom, which your toktokkie obviously succumbed to. A nice meal for a relatively small spider. in Namibia. It terrorised the other insects on the stoep. Behind its wings it had two symmetrical limbs on each side. What is it?

AEntomologist DUNCAN MACFADYEN says: This is a very impressive creature called a ribbon-winged lacewing. A lacewing is the adult form of a larva commonly called an ant lion. It’s characterised by long hind wings, which usually end in broad twisted dilations to provide aerodynamic stability during flight. Almost 70 % of the world’s lacewings are endemic to southern Africa.