did you know? Spiders

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August 10, 2013

  • Many spiders live for one year, but some can produce more than a generation each year. Some live three to four years, and several tarantulas can live for more than 25 years.
  • Studies have shown that you’re never more than 10 feet away from a spider and one estimate puts you as close as three feet. To be “spider-free” you’d have to go into space in a fumigated capsule.
  • Spiders cannot fly, but they can balloon. Young spiderlings pull out silk until they can catch a ride on a breeze. Most don’t travel high or far, but some have been seen at altitudes of 10,000 feet and on ships more than 200 miles from land. Most ballooners are very small spiderlings, but planes with nets have captured adult spiders.
  • Male spiders are almost always smaller than the females and are often much more colorful.
  • Female wolf spiders carry their egg sacs behind them, attached to their spinnerets. After the spiders emerge, they crawl onto the mother’s abdomen and hold on while she hunts. After a week, the spiderlings molt and take off to live on their own.
  • Spiders eat more insects than birds and bats combined and play an important role in controlling insect populations.
  • The decoration in the web of some orb-weaving spiders serves several purposes. It warns birds to not fly into the web, is an attractant to insect meals and can serve as an umbrella to shade the spider from sunlight.

Source: animal.discovery.com

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