It looked like a weaver ant carrying the dead body of a co-worker, but, when Ripan peered closer, he realised the deception: the carrier had eight legs and smaller eyes. It was actually an ant-mimicking crab spider, just five millimetres long. Before these spiders attack, observes Ripan, they ‘tend to hide under leaves’.
This tiny spider can outwit weaver ant colonies by disguising itself as an ant. It looks, smells and even behaves like one, moving erratically and waving its front legs like antennae. It picks on solitary ants and avoids the colony’s attention by escaping with its victim on a silk thread while its venom takes effect.
India
Ripan has been inspired by nature since childhood, enthralled by everything from the life and death of a grasshopper and the flashing green hue of a bee-eater to the sound of crushing dry leaves on the forest floor. His work focuses on insect macro photography and his photos have been published in magazines, including Sanctuary Asia and BBC Wildlife Magazine. Ripan has also received many national and international awards in wildlife photography competitions.
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