Appearance
They are distinguished by a curled leaf at the web's centre. The species form pairs living together in the same leaf though at opposite ends of their shelter, even before mating at maturity. The female creates a separate curled leaf "nursery" hung in foliage nearby.The body length of the male is 5 to 6mm and female 8 to 12mm. Males and females look very similar with red-brown legs and body and a cream coloured pattern on their backs. Their bodies are fat and oval shaped with long tapered legs.
Distribution
The spider is commonly found in open woodland and forest habitats as well as urban and suburban gardens in the North-eastern, Eastern and Southern Australian states.
Behavior
The leaf-curling spiders are day-active orb weavers protecting themselves from predators by sitting inside a silk seamed, curled leaf. In "P. graeffei" this leaf is suspended just above the centre of the web, but may be placed higher in other species. Such leaves may be already part curled though many are not, and the spider pulls and silks its leaf into a retreat cylinder, silked shut at the top and open at the hub....hieroglyph snipped... Like other web-weaving spiders, their main food source is flying insects including insects larger than itself.They are noted for their sexual cohabitation and its function in mate-guarding behaviour. This means that the male and female live together in the same curled leaf, each occupying opposite ends of the retreat with the female at the top end.This species is unusual among orb-weaving spiders because males cohabit in the leaf retreat with both immature and mature females, mating with the former shortly after the female molts. Male spiders may take up residence nearby, or in the same web as the female. Mating takes place as soon as she has her final molt.
Males copulate with previously mated females for significantly longer than with virgin females. Females may cannibalise cohabiting males, independently of whether the female has had food and females that cannibalise a single male are not more fertile than non-cannibalistic females.
The female lays its egg sac within a dead leaf, bent over and silked back on itself. This is suspended among foliage well away from the orb web.
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