Abstract
At a valley and a mountainside ca. 100m apart from each other, the kind and the individual number of spiders inhabiting both the areas and those intruding into the webs of N. clavata were investigated.
Sixty-eight species were collected by beeting and sweeping at both the areas, and ten species were collected from the webs of Nephila. Of these ten species, six were orb-weavers, and four were kleptoparasites. Several abundant species collected by beeting and sweeping were not found in Nephila's webs at all. The relative frequency of intrusion (the ratio of the individual number of intruders to that collected by beeting and sweeping) of the six orb-weavers was as high as that of the four kleptoparasites. So, the intrusion of these orb-weavers into Nephila's webs is not accidental. The aim of the intrusion seems to be prey-theft and/or the use of host web for the scaffold to make their webs.
