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Water Spider
The water spider, a spider that lives in a diving bell. The water spider is the odd man out of the large family
Agelenidae. It is the only one of the 500 species of its family which spends the greater part of its life under water. In this species the male is actually larger than the female. Lakes, ponds, and ditches containing stagnant water stocked with duckweed, larvae and insects are the best habitats for these small spiders. Their nests are air filled diving bells. The diving bell is really a sheet of tightly woven silk threads, spun under the water and securely anchored to the stems of water plants.
The spider carries air bubbles on the tip of its abdomen, down to the sheet web and then releases the air bubbles underneath. The trapped air causes the sheet to dome upward like a fat thimble.
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