Abstract
The endemic Australian huntsman spider, Delena cancerides (Sparassidae), lives in family groups of 1 to 300 spiders and is the most atypical of the known social spiders. Unlike other social spiders, D. cancerides is webless and lives under exfoliating bark. They recognize colony members and aggressively attack alien adult females. Conflict within colonies can be intense. I am studying how retreat limitations may influence this spider’s behavior, including the intensity of intra-group conflict and dispersal timing. I will further catalogue aggressive interactions between colony members and intruders, field movement and feeding behavior, and genetic relatedness within and among colonies, to better understand the costs and benefits of group living in this unusual species.
