How to Design a Flying Tree Spider and its Evolutionary Tree?
In my world there is a trading city in the middle of a vast stretch of wild, untamed forest. It was built to serve as an in-between for merchants as there is a peaceful kingdom both north and south of it. The city is on the banks of a north-south flowing river.
My giant spiders have evolved over the last million years in several different branches. The main branch is the giant Wood Spider. The second (and why there needs to be a safe in-between for trade) is the giant Water Spider. The one I am dealing with is a minor branch, the giant Flying Spider.
They don't actually fly, but more like glide between trees like Flying Squirrels. They hunt by swooping out of the air and grabbing whatever they are hunting (anything from Giant Wood Spiders to Humans and Wildlife like deer).
Question:
1.) How might these three extremely different species of giant Spider evolve to hunt one another within the confines of a single forest the approximate size of the Sahara Desert?
2.) Is the evolution of a "gliding" arachnid possible? If so how could this happen.
For the purposes of this question use the Jba Fofi as a model and work from there. Make sure the spiders are agile and deadly as they have to fight my town and pose a threat.
EDIT:
While I don't want to invalidate existing answers, I feel the need to mention that answers should not use extreme handwavium and should have some base in a precedent. No magic or "it just is because it is" answers please. Thanks :)
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/14213. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
So this giant flying spider has really, really long legs, three to four times its body length. Its legs are also very hairy, with fine, feathery hairs.
Like a jumping spider it is able to leap very far. When it jumps it holds its legs straight out from its body, and the hairs mesh together to form a glide surface, which extends its range quite a bit.
These hairs also make it very sensitive to vibrations, so its "hearing" is very sensitive, and it's also able to detect movement through whatever surface it's standing on.
Like a jumping spider, it doesn't build webs, but hunts its prey with sight and sound.
Edit:
Many spiders have hairy legs, so one developing long fine hairs is possible. With a long enough leg span, it would work a lot like a hang glider, or a flying squirrel. Not able to flap to produce lift, it would instead glide from tree to tree, or tree to victim. It would develop this gliding skill over time in tandem with its jumping: First ballistic trajectory, then using legs to provide control in the air, and finally gliding.
The wood spiders are the biggest, building webs that span tree to tree. They don't normally hunt for food, but wait for the food to come to them. Their webbing is very thin but abnormally strong, meaning if they make a web across a game path then a running deer could easily jump into it and be caught. The webbing is also difficult to cut with a blade. It can be cut, but takes some hacking, which vibrates the web and alerts the spider. The spider will also run trip lines out along the forest floor to alert it to prey.
Shirts woven from wood spider webbing, which is harvested from dead wood spiders, will stop a blade or arrow, similar to mail.
The flying spiders hunt using surprise mostly. By jumping then gliding towards their prey, they are able to use their mass to crash into and stun before using their venom to immobilize the victim. Because spiders have multiple eyes around their heads, a flying spider hunting a wood spider is not easy, but because of their quick reflexes and speed it's not impossible. A normal attack is to see a wood spider away between trees or on a trunk, away from a web, glide near the wood spider, fold in legs to enter a ballistic trajectory, slam into the wood spider to stun it, and bite it before it is able to recover.
Flying spiders do have to be careful of webs, since crashing into one will snare it, allowing the wood spider to kill it.
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