Little Monsters - Part IV: Decorator Orb Weaver

In Japanese it is called a ゴミグモ Gomi gumo or "Trash Spider" . It's latin name is Cyclosa octotuberculata.
I couldn't find the common English name of this spider, so if you know it please comment and let me know!
For now I'll use Decorator Orb Weaver.

Though waiting victorious upon a pile of carcasses as though a dragon upon its treasure horde, the Decorator Spider is quite shy, keeping its face hidden behind the two forward pairs of legs.

Relatively small at about 8mm they build smaller orb webs than the Golden Orb Weaver from Part II
These are often placed below branches of trees and low to the ground.

Larger on 500px.

The interesting behaviour of this spider is that it uses the carcasses of its meals and even its own molted exoskeleton to form a large line of garbage upon which it waits. It's very easy to mistake this web decoration for some random trash or leaves caught on a branch.

Can you spot the spider below?

Click for larger on my old blog.
The vaguely spider like thing in the lower part of the picture is an old exoskeleton that the spider has out grown. Other bits are mosquitoes, flies and so on. A very small unassuming but beneficial spider indeed!
I'm generally in favour of anything that reduces the mosquito population.

An enlargement of the above picture:

Sweet dreams!
You can click for a larger picture, though Steemit's formatting seems to make this very large already!
The spider is always in the centre of the web where the web's support lines converge.

I hope you are enjoying my series about the Little Monsters!

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The next one will have a more colourful little monster!

Comments are always very welcome!

Previous entries of the series:
Little Monsters - Part I: Wolf Spiders!
Little Monsters - Part II: Golden Orb Weaver!
Little Monsters - Part III: Lynx Spider

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