Famiglia: TETRAGNATHIDAE

Nome comune:

Nome scientifico: Tetragnatha obtusa C.L.Koch, 1837

Global distribution (WSC 2021): Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Russia (Europe to Far East), Kazakhstan, Iran, Central Asia

GPS (Neapolis): 37.074018, 15.276875 - 37.075598, 15.277872 - 37.076111, 15.276205

Caratteristiche anatomiche: Ragni dall’aspetto “allungato”, con maschi di 5 mm circa e le femmine che raggiungono gli 8 mm. Le zampe molto estese, con il primo paio e l’ultimo più lunghi delle centrali, vengono tenute distese. Questo ragno ha 8 occhi disposti su due file da 4 parallele. I cheliceri, così come nell’intero genere Tetragnatha, sono molto robusti e allungati, divergenti verso l’esterno e muniti di dentelli, soprattutto nei maschi in cui sono apprezzabili anche delle appendici utili durante l’accoppiamento.

Comportamento: Questi ragni costruiscono tele orbicolari incomplete, la cui zona centrale viene rimossa solamente dopo l’intera costruzione della ragnatela. I maschi durante l’accoppiamento incastrano i cheliceri e le zanne velenifere della femmina con i propri, utilizzando le appendici sulla zona terminale dei proprio cheliceri, probabilmente per evitare un attacco della femmina.

​​Anatomical features: Spiders with an 'elongated' appearance, with males measuring about 5 mm and females reaching 8 mm. The very long legs, with the first pair and the last longer than the middle ones, are held outstretched. This spider has 8 eyes arranged in two parallel rows of 4. The chelicerae, as in the entire genus Tetragnatha, are very robust and elongated, diverging outwards and equipped with denticles, especially in males where appendages useful during mating are also visible.

Behaviour: These spiders build incomplete orbicular webs, the central part of which is only removed after the entire web construction. During mating, males interlock the female's chelicerae and venom fangs with their own, using the appendages at the end of their chelicerae, probably to avoid an attack by the female.

Mind-body dualism has historically functioned as a shortcut through the complexities of this question by introducing a criterion of hierarchical distinction that is sexualized, racialized, and naturalized. Given that this concept of “the human” was colonized by phallogocentrism, it has come to be identified with male, white, heterosexual, Christian, property-owning, standard language–speaking citizens. Zoe marks the outside of this vision of the subject, supported by the efforts of evolutionary theory to strike a new relationship with the nonhuman. … Thus, affinity for zoe is a good starting point for what may constitute the last act of the critique of dominant subject positions, namely, the return of animal, insect, or earth life in all its potency. The breakdown of species distinction (human/nonhuman) and the explosion of zoe power, therefore, shifts the grounds of the problem of the breakdown of categories of individuation (gender and sexuality; ethnicity and race). This introduces the issue of becoming to a planetary or worldwide dimension, the earth being not one element among others, but rather that which brings them all together in a notion of the “milieu” as our habitat or territory.
…
A body is a portion of forces life bound to the environment that feeds it; all organisms are collective and interdependent. Insects, parasites, and viruses are heterodirected: they need other organisms. Admittedly, they relate to them as incubators or hosts, releasing their genetically encoded message as a matter of necessity. Nonetheless, the key point here is that the insects/virus/parasite constitutes a model of a symbiotic relationship that defeats binary oppositions. As such it is an inspiring model for a nomadic ecophilosophy.
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The strength of animals lies precisely in their not being-one, which is expressed in their attachment to and interdependence on a territory, an environment, or a “milieu.” A living entity is situated in between a multitude of others. They rely on small and highly defined slices of environment to which they relate sensorially and perceptively. Insects, especially spiders and parasites like ticks, are among Deleuze’s favorites. Like artists, animals mark their territory physically, by color, sound, or marking and framing. In order to mark|code|possess|frame their territory, animals produce signals and signs constantly; insects buzz and make all sort of sounds; upper primates practically talk; cats, wolves, and dogs mark the lands with bodily fluids of their own production, dogs bark and howl in pain and need. They are immanent to their gestures aimed at coping with needs and environments. In the process of recognizing, coding, and coping, they transcend their sheer animality, joining up with the human in the effort to express, inhabit, and protect their territory. Orienting oneself in a strange territory; finding food and water, let alone a mate, expressing all this so that the others in the collective pack or group can get the idea—this is a model of radical immanence that needs to be revalued. It is nonverbal communication at its best. In this respect, humans may have more in common with their multiple genetic neighbors than they may care to admit. In philosophical nomadism the proximity is transspecies and transgenic, material in the sense of matter|mater. It has to do with a chain of connections that can best be described as an ecological philosophy of nonunitary, embodied, self-organized organisms.
Rosi Braidotti, “The Cosmic Buzz of Insects,” in Nomadic Theory

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