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I discovered today that there are a lot of pictures of spiders "wearing" water drops as hats.

enter image description here

(More research: Warning -- Spiders!)

However, I can't find anything related to why they might do this. Is this some beneficial behavior common to some families of spiders? Is this a case of the internet taking a natural occurrence (spiders being rained on) and ascribing a greater meaning to it? Or is it an unnatural occurrence?

George Chalhoub
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Raven Dreamer
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    This should be migrated to Biology.SE, as there seems to be no claim to investigate... – nico Aug 10 '13 at 16:14
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    The implied claim is that the droplets are there for some cause/reason other than their having simply been rained on. – ChrisW Aug 10 '13 at 16:28
  • Seems notable enough for me, many of the images in the linked search also contain the claim as text, so it is not only an implied claim based on the image. The question would also be welcome on Biology, but unless Raven asks I see no reason to migrate it. – Mad Scientist Aug 10 '13 at 17:16
  • @Fabian, I haven't seen any of the pictures claim that the spiders do so intentionally, which is the main claim. There isn't a notable claim here, and if there is, please put it in the question. This really should migrate to Biology. – SIMEL Aug 10 '13 at 18:09
  • @IlyaMelamed Asking about the spiders' intention or motive may be off-topic, as you said; but asking whether they do it actively (as opposed to just being rained on) is IMO a question about fact; and so is asking whether they benefit from it. – ChrisW Aug 10 '13 at 19:57
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    @ChrisW, you are right, what you wrote is infact a good question. The problem is that I didn't see any source claim that they actively do so. I just saw people take pictures of spiders with water on their head. If there is a source that claims that they do so actively, please put that in the question. Otherwise, we don't have a *Notable* claim, just an interesting Biology question. – SIMEL Aug 10 '13 at 21:20
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    Pictures like [this](http://www.udadennie.com/new-gallery/image/195-i-only-think-a-camera.html#fwgallerytop) make me think the photographer added the droplets. *"[Deep within his garden, in Batam Island, Indonesia, photographer Uda Dennie is busy takes photos of a quite humorous sight - jumping spiders with water drops on their heads! The massive water droplets stay in place for about a minute, which is just the right amount of time for the 33-year-old to snap these shots](http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/uda-dennie-spider-waterdrop-hats)"* – RedGrittyBrick Aug 10 '13 at 21:59
  • @RedGrittyBrick That looks like a correct answer: the cited photos all have the same photographic/composition/color style, with interesting/staged reflections in the droplets. – ChrisW Aug 10 '13 at 22:44
  • I searched but couldn't find any notable claims that they deliberately do it. [This was close, but not notable enough.](http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130722161945AAACacT) – Oddthinking Aug 11 '13 at 01:20

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There is no suggestion from the original photographers that spiders place water droplets on their heads. Web pages that re-post these photos don't have any references to support the notion.

There are at least two photographers who stage these photographs.

Consider Dmitriy Yoav Reinshtein whose gallery includes

  • mantis with water droplet "hat"
  • housefly with water droplet "hat"
  • spider with water droplet "hat"
  • spider on flat blue surface with artfully placed water droplets.

This last example shows that the photographer carefully places droplets to stage the photographs.

Another photographer is Uda Dennie who stages pictures with water droplets on the heads of jumping spiders. The droplets in Dennie's photos act as lenses to bring into focus backgrounds that consist of prints of other macro photographs.

These photos are real but highly staged. In particular, water droplets don't stay on the heads of jumping spiders for very long.

RedGrittyBrick
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    Yes, he's quoted staging these photos http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167700/Matching-hat-handbag-Photographer-captures-incredible-images-spiders-modelling-latest-water-wear.html – mahalie Nov 27 '13 at 20:07