Spider Facts

Spiders have eight eyes, eight legs, two body parts, outside skeletons, and fangs. They do not have antennas or wings. Males are smaller than the females.

The spider begins spinning its web in the evening or early morning before the flying insects get air-borne.

The web-building spiders have two or more pairs of glands, called spinnerets, in their abdomens that produce liquid silk. Each spinneret has many small tubes. The spider spins a watery fluid. As soon as it hits the air it becomes hard. Two kinds of silk come out. One silk is dry and will not stretch; the other is sticky and stretches. Insects are caught and held by the sticky strand. Besides using the silk to wrap their egg sacs, the threads are used for draglines, wrapping insects, web trap doors, and to line their nests.

Spiders that spin an orb-shaped web are classified as Orb-Web Spiders. The wheel shaped web is used to catch prey that flies into the sticky silk. The web vibration announces a 'catch' and the spider rushes to tie up the victim before it gets away or tears up the web. Sometimes the male Orb spider comes calling and will shake the strands of silk to announce his arrival.

The spider holds to the silk thread with claw-like bristles on its legs. Its body oil keeps it from sticking to the web. A moth is protected from the sticky strand by scales on its body. Most garden spiders hide during the day then recline in their web at night.

A Comb Footed spider has bristles like a comb on its hind legs. It combs out the silk; when an insect flies into the web, it can quickly silk-wrap its food before the victim escapes. The Gray House spider and Red Back spider are species of the Comb Footed spider.

The Golden Orb-Weaver most often lives in the garden and is harmless to people.

Strong golden silk lines make the web. At times, its strength has snared a bat. The female spider is about six times larger than the male.

The harmless St. Andrew's Cross spider makes zigzag bars forming an X over the web. These bars help strengthen the web.

The Wraparound spider, with its broad, flat abdomens, looks like a broken tree trig; this helps it hide during the day. At night it spins an orb web to catch insects.

Early some sunny morning, look across the grass and you'll see a carpet of fine silk threads. Young ballooning spiders make this carpet. They climb up to the top of the grass and send threads of silk into the air. The wind blows these threads and spiders away. They spin more, more, and more thread as they travel. They can go without food for months.

The Dewdrop spider and other small spiders do not build a web but live near an orb web and eat the remains of left over insects.

The trap-door spider lives in a hole in the ground. It lines its nest with silk then weaves a trap door of silk. The door is camouflaged with moss or grass. But if an insect steps on the door, it opens and the insect fall inside to become the spider's meal.

The Black Widow and the Brown Recluse spiders inject poison when they bite. They are most commonly found in the western and southern United States and Chile.

A Brown Recluse has a leg span of about an inch and has a dark brown violin-shaped design on its back. It's found in the dark corners inside a building or outside under rocks. People bitten by the Brown Recluse usually don't feel pain for two or three hours.

A Brown Recluse bit me. Six hours later, my leg turned red, swelled, and then a blister appeared. The doctor later lanced the wound

Speculation has been to use spider's silk commercially, but it hasn't been perfected since spiders eat each other when massed together. A spider bite is not as dangerous as a mosquito bite.

Spiders eat millions of insects a year. They create beautiful webs and are useful.