Facts About Spider

The term spider has been derived from an Old English verb ‘spinnan’, which means, “to spin”. Apart from being the largest order of arachnids, a spider ranks seventh in the total species diversity, among all other groups of organisms. It is an air-breathing arthropod that has eight legs and two body parts - the abdomen and the thorax. It does not have wings or antennae, but has an exoskeleton, which means that the skeleton is located on the outside of the body. While most of the spiders are known for making webs, some of them weave silk as well. Spiders are found all across the world except, in Antarctica. Taxonomists have recorded more than 40,000 species and 109 families of spiders in the world. Read through the following lines to know more interesting facts and amazing information on spiders.

Facts About Spider

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropod

Subphylum: Chelicerata

Class: Arachnida

Order: Araneae

Suborder: Mesothelae, Mygalomorphae, Araneomorphae

Group Name: Troop

Length: 0.37 mm - 90 mm

Weight: 3 g

Leg Span: 250 mm

Lifespan: 1-2 years

Diet: Mostly carnivorous

Habitat: Throughout the world, except Antarctica

Age of Sexual Maturity: 12-14 months

Gestation Period: 90 days

Number of Offspring: 3,000 eggs

Interesting & Amazing Information On Spiders

Spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods.
They have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure.
Spiders have the capacity to generate pressures up to eight times their resting level, to extend their legs.
Most spider species are known to feed on dead anthropods, web silk, and their own shed exoskeletons, while those in captivity consider feeding on bananas, marmalade, milk, egg yolk and sausages.
They are capable of increasing their motion with an increase in blood pressure in their third and fourth pair of legs.
The webs of spiders vary in size, shape and amount of thickness used for making threads.
Spiders have a short life span, due to which the male species survive only for a few days after mating.
Spiders do not have true jaws; they liquidize their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes and grinding it with the bases of their pedipalps.
Most spiders feed on the nectar of the flowers. These spiders are also called nocturnal spiders.
Spiders catch their prey by sticking webs. Web-building spiders have poor vision, but are extremely sensitive to vibrations.
Research says that their coloration is a camouflage that helps spiders to evade their major predators, like birds and parasitic wasps, both of which have good color vision.
Spiders reproduce sexually and their fertilization is internal, but indirect i.e. the sperm is not inserted into the female's body by the male's genitals, but by an intermediate stage.
Spiders are served as a delicacy at many places. Cooked tarantula spiders are especially considered a delicacy in Cambodia.

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