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Predation by the spider Tidarren sisyphoides (Walckenaer, 1841) on the

Ringneck Coffee Snake Ninia diademata Baird & Girard, 1853 in Veracruz,
Mexico

Article  in  Herpetology Notes · February 2021

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Herpetology Notes, volume 14: 301-302 (2021) (published online on 09 February 2021)
Predation by the spider Tidarren sisyphoides (Walckenaer, 1841)
on the Ringneck Coffee Snake Ninia diademata
Baird & Girard, 1853 in Veracruz, Mexico
Angel Ivan Contreras Calvario1, Manuel de Luna2,*, Abigail Mora Reyes1,
and Xavier Contreras Calvario3
The Ringneck Coffee Snake Ninia diademata Baird &
Girard, 1853 is a very small, fossorial dipsadid (up to
42 cm in total length). It has a solid black dorsum with
a pale dorsal collar in the neck area and 83–106 and 73–
98 subcaudal scales in males and females, respectively.
These characteristics differentiate it from its only other
Mexican congener, the Redback Coffee Snake N. sebae
(Duméril et al., 1854), which has a red dorsum with a
black collar in the neck area, often possesses incomplete
black bands on its dorsum, and has fewer subcaudal
scales (41–71 in males, 37–60 in females; Heimes, 2016).
Ninia diademata occurs in eastern as well as southern
Mexico, excluding the Yucatán Peninsula, as well as the
Central American countries of Belize, Guatemala, and
Honduras. Its elevational range is from ca. 800–1300 m
(Heimes, 2016). The only documented predator of this
species is the Variable Coralsnake Micrurus diastema
(Duméril et al., 1854) (West, 2019).
On 8 February 2020 at around 15:00 h, a male
specimen of N. diademata (Fig. 1A) was found in a rural
community known as La Cuesta, Camerino Z. Mendoza
Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico (18.7960°N,
97.1701°W; WGS 84; elevation 1566 m). The snake was
entangled in the web of a spider, suspended around 1 m
above-ground and still had vital signs. Upon removing it
1
Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Campus
Peñuela, Universidad Veracruzana, Camino Peñuela-Amatlán
s/n, Peñuela, Amatlán de los Reyes, Veracruz 94945, Mexico.
2
Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Manuel L. Barragán
Avenue, Ciudad Universitaria, San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo
León 66455, Mexico.
3
Instituto Tecnológico de Orizaba, Oriente 9, Emiliano Zapata,
Orizaba, Veracruz 94320, Mexico.
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: scolopendra94@gmail.com
© 2021 by Herpetology Notes. Open Access by CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
from the spider’s web, the snake spasmed and appeared
somewhat rigid. It was collected while still alive but
died overnight. Both snake and spider were deposited
in the herpetological and arachnological collections,
respectively, of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo
León (voucher numbers UANL 8449 for the snake and
FCB-ATHER 144 for the spider).
The spider was later identified as a female Tidarren
sisyphoides (Walckenaer, 1841) (Araneae: Theridiidae)
(Fig. 1B, C) using Levi’s (1970) keys. There are various
recorded instances where theridiid spiders have taken
vertebrate prey many times larger than themselves,
including snakes (Beaman and Tucker, 2014; Davis et
al., 2017; Rocha et al., 2017; Nyffeler and Vetter, 2018)
but this is the first time this phenomenon is recorded for
a species of the genus Tidarren.
As with other spiders of the family Theridiidae, T.
sisyphoides is an ambush predator that relies on its sticky
web to capture prey (Luna et al., 2020). Once the prey
is in contact with the web, the spider is alerted and uses
movements on its fourth pair of legs to apply viscous silk
threads in order to help immobilise the target. Tired from
the struggle, the prey ceases or slows movement, and the
spider uses this clue to close in and bite the prey in order
to envenomate it. If the prey is large and continues to
move after envenomation (as it was likely the case in
this particular encounter), the spider suspends it from
a few lines of silk and continues its attack from above,
wrapping and biting the prey repeatedly to kill it. Finally,
after the prey is dead or at least completely paralysed, the
spider moves it close to its retreat, where it is wrapped
in more silk and attached with threads near the entrance
(Madrigal-Brenes and Barrantes, 2009). This last step
was not seen in this encounter, as both predator and prey
were collected before it happened.
Acknowledgments. We are very thankful to the anonymous
reviewer, who contributed to the improvement of our manuscript.
302 Angel Ivan Contreras Calvario et al.

Figure 1. Participants in the predator-prey interaction between (A) a male Ringneck Coffee Snake, Ninia diademata (black scale
bar = 1 cm), and (B) a female Tidarren sisyphoides spider (10 small squares on underlying graph paper = 1 cm). (C) Lateral aspect
of the epigynum of the spider, diagnostic for the species. Photos by Manuel de Luna.

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Accepted by Javier Cortés Suárez

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