Europe and temperate Asia
Fine-art photographic collection
Tetragnatha montana
A long-jawed spider that locks fangs with a mate — and can be turned into a web-building slave by a parasitoid wasp.
About this species
Tetragnatha montanaSimon, 1874
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Tetragnatha montana is a long-jawed orb-weaver usually found near water and humid vegetation. It builds a delicate horizontal or angled orb web and rests with legs stretched along stems, becoming remarkably twig-like.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Araneae · Tetragnathidae · Tetragnatha
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe and temperate AsiaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Wet woodland, marshes, river margins and vegetation around ponds and streams.
Often rests by day and becomes active around the web in humid or low-light conditions.
Flying insects caught in an orb web.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
During mating the male’s elongated chelicerae interlock with the female’s jaws, holding the dangerous mouthparts apart at extremely close range.
When resting, the spider stretches all eight legs along a stem so that its long body becomes an almost continuous line of plant-like camouflage.
A specialised Acrodactyla wasp larva can force the spider to build a reinforced “cocoon web”, then kills it and suspends its own cocoon from the altered silk.