So we decided last minute to go spiderhunting for the day. Ian, Taki and myself went to the Waterberg area in search for new Pterinochilus lapalala localities.

On our very first stop we noticed the correct habitat and started our search. It took almost 10 minutes to find our very first confirmed Pterinochilus lapalala :happy: and it was a great feeling.



These have a very interesting habitat living under these big blackish rocks on the slopes of small hills. They are specific rocks not embedded in the ground and they sit quite loose on top of the main rocks. The most significant feature of these Pterinochilus lapalala is that they are extremely quick and as you turn the rock you notice the webbing but the spider is gone. In the beginning we thought that they had just abandoned their home but later after turning a few more we saw them run.



We found approximately 50 Pterinochilus lapalala most of them being spiderlings and some juveniles. Unfortunately no adults where found.





After about 2 hours in that area we moved to different locations and see how far the distribution of this species is. 3 Hours later after 6 locations we did not find any and this confirmed our thoughts of the specific habitat. The last location we spotted the same rock on the very similar slopes and after 10 minutes again we found another Pterinochilus lapalala juvenile which had recently shed.





We did find more species : Ceratogyrus darlingi (East African Horned Baboon) , Augacephalus junodi as well as some Brachionopus which we are not sure what they are.

Great, thanks for sharing. Nice to see you found a few young-uns. Shows the population must be doing alright.

Video added