Sitting on a lily pad, this spider pounced on an unlucky dragonfly. Approx 3cm long body and longest span across, from leg tip to leg tip, was around 5cm
Very interesting observation Jules! It looks like a 'water spider' ... family Pisauridae. In fact, it looks rather like Dolomedes facetus, but that species is from northern QLD. https://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:biodiversity.org.au:afd.taxon:86865377-c7b9-4340-8182-ccae52b72d5a#gallery
Thank you KerriLee.. it is difficult to see in these photos due to compression, but it does have the spiky legs like the Dolomedes facetus, but is not hairy like this one, rather it's legs look almost transparent with a green tinge. The body shape and markings are almost identical!
Thanks KerriLee! Will see what I can do with it to enhance the legs. Unfortunately it has been cropped quite a bit already as it was floating out in the dam, some distance from the side. If I can get a better result by editing I'll post asap!
I think we can call this to genus ... Dolomedes sp. It's a very close match to several sightings on the ALA: https://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:biodiversity.org.au:afd.taxon:27d0b292-089c-4794-9f65-cfc2b51f89e1#gallery Well done!
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