Pyriform Gland in Crossopriza lyoni

 Hello folks,

As usual today, I want to talk about one type of silk gland I found in the adult spider C. lyoni during the labwork period. After performing a very tedious dissection of the spider abdomen using simple dissecting tools to procure the gland, I finally managed to obtain a good image of the large gland. At first by referring to the previous study by Prakash (1992), this gland was reported to be an ampullate gland however, few months ago, a Ph.D student from the US had shown that this gland turned out to be a large pyriform gland in Pholcus phalangiodes, a distant relative of C. lyoni. She in fact had the spidroin analyzed and confirmed that it belonged to a large pyriform gland!. You can see the gland I obtained from C. lyoni in the image attached. Till then ~~~

 

Looks like the head of an alien to me!