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Spiders
have been on the planet for around 350,00 years.
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There are
at least 37,000 known species of spiders in the world
and approximately 700 species live in Florida.
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Spiders are
invertebrates, arthropods and ARACHNIDS.
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The name of
the class, Arachnida, comes from a young Greek girl Arachne.
Her spinning and weaving were so perfect that she angered the
goddess Athena, who
turned Arachne into a spider to weave through the rest of
time.
There are several versions in Greek Mythology.
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The English
word spider comes from the German word meaning spinner.
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Spiders
have 2 body parts, a cephalothorax and abdomen.
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Spiders
have 8 legs attached to the cephalothorax.
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Most
spiders have poor eyesight even with 8 eyes.
Some spiders may only have 2,4, or 6 eyes.
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All spiders
are predators.
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Spiders as
a group eat more insects than birds.
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Most female
spiders live a year or two, but female tarantulas
may live for 25 years. Most male spiders live 4-5 months
except
the male tarantula. They may live for 4-10 years.
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Some native
cultures eat tarantulas.
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All spiders
make silk, but not all spiders make webs. Some silk
is sticky, some is dry. Silk is made in the abdomen and squirted
from the spinnerets.
Spiders have six spinnerets. Some spiders can make seven
different kinds of silk.
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Silk is
liquid until it hits the air and then it hardens.
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Spider silk
has been used by primitive people for fishing nets, lures, bags and
headdresses.
Spider silk has been used for cross hairs in
telescopes, levels and surveying equipment.
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Most all
spiders are poisonous and some authorities say all
spiders are poisonous, but only a few spiders have venom and
fangs strong enough to be harmful to humans.
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A spider
does not chew its food. It bites its prey and the venom injected
into the prey
paralyzes or kills it prey. The digestive effect of the venom
turns the tissue of the prey
into a liquid which is then sucked up into the spider’s stomach.
Spiders are able to
turn insects into a kind of soup as they are only able to eat
liquids.
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Spider legs
are covered with hairs that serve as sense organs.
The hairs pick up vibrations and smells from the air. Spiders have
at least 2 claws at the
end of each leg. These claws allow them to climb glass.
Web builders have 3 tiny claws at the end of each leg and they hang
onto their web
with the middle claw.
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The
chelicerae are two small organs near the mouth that are used
to grab and kill prey. Each chelicerae has a hollow fang at
its end.
The chelicerae of most spiders move from side to side,
but
tarantulas move up and down.
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Spider
droppings are white and are called guanine.
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Molting is
an important part of every spider’s life. The exoskeleton does not
grow and
must be shed and replaced by a larger exoskeleton.
The new skeleton forms inside the old one. The outer exoskeleton
pops open and the spider
climbs out in its new exoskeleton.
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Jumping
spiders have the best eyesight of all spiders. They can see 4-12
inches away.
Most web-building spiders have poor eyesight and rely on web
vibrations.
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Web weaving
spiders use webs to trap insects. The shape of the
web varies with species. Some build orb webs, funnel, sheet,
dome, mesh or tangle types
of web. Some spiders do not make webs.
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Venom from
the Black Widow spider and the Brown recluse spider
is made up of protein compounds. Black widow venom is 15 times
more potent than the
venom from a Diamondback Rattlesnake, but they inject only a tiny
amount of venom.
Very few people die from a bite of a Black Widow spider.
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Some orb
weaving spiders put a special design in the center of
the web, with a thicker silk. This is called a stabilimentum. It
gives off ultra-violet rays
which attract insects, allow birds to see the web and often
hides the spider in the
middle of the web.
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Spiders are
carnivorous predators.
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Web weaving
spiders build 4 basic web types: orb, tangle, sheet and funnel.
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The most
dangerous spider in the world is the
Australian Funnel Spider.
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Baby
spiders are called Spiderlings. They break out of the egg case using
an egg tooth
on the pedipalp. There may be 500 Spiderlings in an egg
case.
They remain in or around the egg case until they have molted one
time. Some Spiderlings
will prey upon others in the egg case.
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Many young
spiders leave the place of their birth by ballooning.
They climb to a high place, tip their abdomen upward and release a
strand of silk.
They continue to let out silk until the breeze picks the silk strand
up and pulls the Spiderlings along in the breeze.
Spiderlings have
been seen 20 miles out to sea and 3 miles high.
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The "6
S’s of Silk" or how spiders use silk are: signal
threads,
spirals, snares, shelters, safety lines and sacs for eggs.
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Sex of a
spider can be determined by the size of the pedicel, the junction of
cephalothorax
and abdomen. In other words it is the spider’s waistline. The
female will have a broad pedicel while the male’s
will be more
slender. The male will have club shaped pedipalps and the
female will be slender and stick like.
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Enemies of
spiders are: humans, weather, frogs, toads, lizards, birds, shrews,
hunting beetles, ants, centipedes,
parasitic flies, wasps, fungus
and other spiders.
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Most
spiders have a patterned abdomen.
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Cobwebs
have been used for dressing wounds. It seems to have an
anticoagulant in the silk.
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Baby
spiders are colorless.
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The lace web
spider has no poison glands so it wraps its prey in silk, a very
fluffy silk
which it combs out with its back legs.
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Wandering
spiders trail a safety line behind them as they travel and anchor it
down periodically. When they
return they recycle the silk by eating
the safety line. This helps them
produce more silk.
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Spiders are
fascinating animals.
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Common
Florida spiders are jumping spiders, crab spiders, golden silk
spiders, spiny orb weavers, argiope spiders,
lynx spiders, wolf
spiders, orchard spiders and long jawed orb-weavers.
The most venomous spiders in Florida are the Southern Black
Widow spider, Brown Widow spider, Red Widow spider and the Brown
Recluse spider.
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About Spiders