Spider facts

●    Spiders aren’t insects; they’re arachnids, related to ticks, scorpions and mites.
●    All spiders produce silk, but not all make webs. They use silk to build shelters, cocoon their eggs, fly though the air, dangle from tree branches and reel in prey.
●    Although many spiders are brown, grey or black, some are adorned in vibrant shades and mesmerising patterns to attract prey.
●    Spiders sense the world around them through vibrations, often using their silk webs to detect these vibrations.
●    While almost all spiders are venomous, less than 0.20% of species have venom potent enough to harm humans.
 

Spiders aren’t insects; they belong to a different category called arachnids, which includes mites, ticks, scorpions and daddy-longlegs among others.¹ There are 11 types of animals in the arachnid class. Unlike insects, whose bodies are divided into three segments with six legs, arachnids have two body segments and eight legs.²

Spiders are believed to be among the first animals to inhabit the Earth’s land – and they are ancient. Fossils from 380 million years ago reveal early forms of arachnids, already possessing segmented abdomens and silk-producing organs.³

Spiders are highly diverse, with over 52,000 species identified worldwide as of June 2024, divided into 134 different families. They are also numerous in population, with an estimated 25 million metric tons of spiders across the globe.⁴

Spiders are found everywhere in the world except Antarctica, where it’s too cold.⁵ They adapt to nearly every habitat, from hot, misty jungles to arid deserts and even cold mountains up to 5,000m. For example, the Himalayan jumping spider thrives at these high altitudes.⁶ Generally, though, spiders prefer tropical regions.

Spiders can even inhabit freshwater, such as streams, ponds and lakes. Fishing spiders, for instance, can walk on the water’s surface. They have specialised spikes on their legs that allow them to stay on the water and detect movements, enabling them to pounce on small fish and aquatic insects. Diving bell spiders spin silk domes underwater to trap air bubbles and create submerged homes, carrying a bubble of air on their back like a scuba diver.⁷

Although many spiders are black, brown or dark-coloured to blend into their surroundings, some species display a vivid array of colours. These bright hues help them communicate with other spiders and lure prey into their eight arms.

Jewel spiders are adorned in white and black with specks of orange, red, and pink.⁸ Some have rectangular, pumpkin-orange bodies that look like spiked wings. These patterns help lure prey to their invisible web, as insects will be attracted by the display of colours. The brown huntsman spider uses a bright stripe of colour running down its back to attract light-hungry moths at night.⁹

Peacock spiders are named for the unique, feathery fan on their abdomen used in courting rituals, displaying shades of blue, orange, yellow, red and gold.¹⁰ The Siler spider, a jumping spider found in China and Japan, sports similar iridescent colours, but it uses them to mimic ants and fool them into becoming prey.¹¹

Flower crab spiders have puffy, bao-shaped white abdomens with golden freckles and vibrant yellow legs.¹² Some crab spiders display lilac-coloured legs resembling orchid petals, while others have spiked white and orange backs or vibrant green and yellow hues to mimic foliage.¹³ This camouflage allows them to hide from predators and even to attract unsuspecting bees and flies in search of nectar.

Not all colours are meant to make spiders look attractive, though. Some crab spiders are called ‘bird dung” species because they’ve evolved to look like bird droppings, appearing as a splattered mess of grey, white and black.¹⁴

Spiders vary greatly in size. The Patu digua spider is miniscule, measuring around 0.3mm in length.¹⁵ In contrast, the Goliath birdeater, often dubbed "king of spiders", is a tarantula with legs spanning nearly 30cm and a body weight of about 170g, which is more than a baseball or a billiard ball.¹⁶

Within many spider species, females are typically much larger than males, sometimes even twice their size.¹⁷

Most spiders have eight eyes, although some have six, four or even two. (There are also some species, such as certain cave-dwelling spiders, that have no eyes at all.) In eight-eyed spiders, two large front eyes handle most of the seeing, while three pairs of side eyes around the head detect movement.¹⁸

However, most spiders have poor eyesight, capable only of detecting movement and variations in light levels.¹⁹

There are a couple of exceptions. Net-casting spiders have effective night vision and a wide field of view thanks to their two huge front eyes. Jumping spiders also have exceptional eyesight – one of the best among spiders  – and they can see as well as pigeons, cats and elephants.²⁰ They can also see colours and detect both UVA and UVB light.²¹

Despite their generally poor eyesight, spiders are exceptionally perceptive.

Thousands of tiny hairs on their bodies and legs help spiders detect a wide range of vibrations from 100 to 10,000Hz.²² The hairs are so sensitive they can pick up on humans chatting from several metres away.²³ Spiders also have specialised sensory organs called pedipalps: small appendages near their mouths that function like antennas, helping them sense their surroundings, as supplementary walking devices and as sex organs.²⁴

Spiders also use their webs to gather information about their environment.²⁵ For example, bridge spiders detect vibrations and sounds through their taut silk strands – and some experts consider spiderwebs to be the “most sensitive eardrums in the natural world”.²⁶

Despite their tiny brains, some spider species are astonishingly smart. Black widows, for example, have a surprisingly good memory. They can make mental maps of their webs  and if their prey is stolen, they can remember how large it was and where it was located on their web – and they use this information to decide whether to go looking for the stolen snack or let it go.²⁷

Jumping spiders of the genus Portia are particularly noted for their intelligence, shining above the rest.²⁸ They eat other species of spiders, and instead of catching them in their own web, they go hunt them down on the prey’s webs instead. They pluck the strands of silk in the prey’s web, mimicking the vibrations of a trapped insect and when the unsuspecting spider crawls out to check what has been caught, it gets pounced on by Portia instead.²⁹ That’s not all: Portia spiders adapt and change their plucking patterns according to the particular prey – like deploying slower, soothing rhythms to lure larger, more cautious spiders.³⁰

All spiders make silk, but not all spiders make webs.³¹ Spider silk – which is produced from their specialised spinnerets and is a thread of flexible, strong protein fibres – is the strongest known natural fibre, even stronger than steel.³²

Orb-weavers are known for creating beautiful, expansive orb-shaped webs, usually placed inconspicuously where insects are flying by.³³ The insects get stuck in the sticky, transparent threads without knowing what hit them, and the spider gets a meal. Nearly every day, orb-weavers eat their old web and spin a new one. While orb-weavers spin their webs high up, not all spiders do. Comb-footed spiders, for example, create tangled webs close to the ground.³⁴ These webs are not sticky but they’re tangled and intricate, trapping ants and other crawling insects that may be passing by.

Funnel-web spiders construct webs on the ground over their burrows, funnelling prey into the entrance of their homes, where the spider can quickly pounce.³⁵

Bolas spiders use a single strand of silk with a sticky globule at the end to capture their prey.³⁶ They swing the silk strand like a fishing line, smacking the prey with the sticky globule and then pulling it back into their mouths. This highly specialised technique – together with the deployment of some sneaky pheromones – evolved to capture moths, whose slippery wing scales slip off ordinary webs. Ogre-faced spiders make silk nets between four of their legs and ambush their prey from above, like kidnappers throwing a silk sack over their victims.³⁷

Trapdoor spiders build silk-lined burrows in the soil to stay protected from the outside world.³⁸ Nursery-web spiders hide their eggs in sacs of silk and carry them between their legs, cocooning them until they hatch.³⁹ They also make tents of silk between leaves to house their eggs too. The Anelosimus eximius spiders, also dubbed "the social spiders"  build massive communal webs for thousands of spiders to live in colonies together on large trees (they can also synchronise to take down prey 700 times their size).⁴⁰ Spiders may also sometimes use their silk to create sturdy draglines to safely move from one place to another and to prevent falls from their webs.⁴¹

Most spiders are carnivorous, feeding on flies, moths, butterflies, ants, and other small creatures.⁴² Some spiders wait in their webs for prey to come to them, while other spiders go out on the hunt.⁴³ Some spiders rely on using silk to immobilise prey, while others inject powerful venom to subdue their victims, leaving them helpless.⁴⁴

Since their guts are very narrow, spiders don’t eat their meals whole. Instead, they grind food with their multifunctional pedipalps, vomit digestive enzymes to break down and liquefy the prey, before slurping it all up.⁴⁵ This process may take a few rounds before everything is mushy enough for the arachnid to digest.

However, one spider is mainly vegetarian: the jumping spider Bagheera kiplingi sustains itself on 90% plant material and nectar.⁴⁶

Yes, almost all spiders have a venomous bite (except spiders from the Uloboridae family).⁴⁷ Spiders use venom both to capture prey and to defend themselves from predators.

However, less than 0.05% of spider species are toxic enough to harm humans, as their venom is designed to subdue prey that’s small enough for them to hunt.⁴⁸ Among the species dangerous to humans are the black widow, brown recluse, funnel-web spider, and baboon spiders.

Spiders cannot fly, but some small species and spiderlings can use their silk to make parachute-like structures to propel them across large distances. These spiders are so tiny they can secrete a couple of long silk strands, catch the wind, and then float into the gusts for distances of up to 800 metres.⁴⁹

Even in the spider world, mating requires a little bit of courtship or even a tussle.

Male false crab spiders, for instance, attack, bite and tie up their mate with silk threads to immobilise the female for the 20 minutes it needs to mate.⁵⁰

Male nursery web spiders capture a snack, neutralise it, wrap it up in silk and use it as a gift to woo a female. Males who succeed with this tactic mate for up to 100 minutes, compared with those without gifts, who are dismissed after 10 minutes.⁵¹Paratrechalea ornata spiders also prepare gift bundles for their mate – the white, opaque colour of the present seems to entice females  – but 70% of these gifts are empty.⁵²

Male Jotus remus spiders perform an elaborate ritual, rhythmically waving their fluffy pedipalps at females from behind leaves.⁵³ This is thought to be a technique to calm the female and turn her from a potential predator to a potential mate: a lover’s peek-a-boo! ⁵⁴

Yes, many spiders engage in “sexual cannibalism”, where females consume their mates before, during, or after mating.

Black widows are most famous for this behaviour, and although they don’t always cannibalise the male after mating, they sometimes eat several mates, one after the other. Female fishing spiders and Mediterranean tarantulas devour their mates.⁵⁵ Cannibalism can happen before, during, or after mating. Male redback and brown widow spiders actually offer themselves up as snacks, although studies suggest males sometimes choose to mate with younger females in the hope of not getting eaten.⁵⁶

Some spider species have evolved to escape cannibalistic females: the male orb-weaving spider has been known to catapult itself off its mate at a speed of up to 88.2cm/s in an attempt to save its life.⁵⁷

Spiders have a bad reputation and many people in the Western world fear them. According to data from 2022, more than 6% of people have arachnophobia, an irrational fear of spiders. When thinking about spiders it can be all too easy to conjure the menacing images of large, hairy tarantulas or venomous black widows.⁵⁸

However, most spiders will never meet a human and most people will never be bitten by a spider in their entire lifetime.

The vast majority of spider species are harmless, and they are some of the most critically important creatures for the health of the biosphere. Because they are so abundant and such effective predators, spiders play an important role in controlling insect populations. Experts estimate that all the world's spiders kill 400–800 million metric tons of insects yearly.⁵⁹ Other studies show that in some ecosystems, more than 40% of all insect biomass passes through spiders.⁶⁰ The natural pest control that spiders provide is crucial for protecting crops and preserving agriculture.

Featured image © Korawee Ratchapakdee | Getty Images

Fun fact image  © jammypodger7470 | Unsplash

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