Don McCleese - Spiders

2012 Rourke Publishing LLC

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PHOTO CREDITS: LionH

Edited by Precious McKenzie

Cover Design by Renee Brady
Layout by Nicola Stratford, Blue Door Publishing, FL

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McLeese, Don
Spiders / Don McLeese
p. cm. -- (Eye to Eye With Animals)
ISBN 978-1-61741-779-5 (hard cover) (alk. paper)
ISBN 78-1-61741-981-2 (soft cover)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011924825

Rourke Publishing
Printed in the United States of America, North Mankato, Minnesota
091610 091510LP-B

Post Office Box 643328 Vero Beach, Florida 32964

Do spiders scare you? We know that spiders bite. We may even know that there is in their bite. So are we scared of spiders because they can hurt us?

Not really. In North America, there are only six kinds of spiders whose bite has that can hurt you. And world wide there are only 25 spiders who can hurt you with a bite.

Wolf spiders got their name because people once thought these spiders hunted in packs like wolves.

You might think thats a lot of harmful spiders but scientists think there may be as many as 100,000 different kinds of spiders all over the world. They have already discovered and given names to more than 35,000 types, or . There are billions and billions of spiders on Earth, so many that we couldnt begin to count.

North American Spiders that Are Harmful to Humans

People should be thankful for spiders. Spiders eat locusts, grasshoppers, and other insects that destroy plants. Spiders also eat insects that carry diseases, such as mosquitoes and flies.

Spiders trap much larger insects in their webs and then gobble them up. Hows that for all natural pest control?

What else do spiders eat? There is a spider that lives in the of South America that is more than ten inches (25.4 centimeters) wide. It is known as the goliath bird-eating spider. Other large spiders eat mice or small fish, even frogs. And spiders eat each other! Because female spiders are usually bigger and stronger than males, its more common for females to eat males than the other way around.

Since spiders dont eat plants, they have to capture from sticky silk.

Argiope Spider

A female argiope spider wrapping silk around a grasshopper caught in her web.

Fascinating Spider Fact

The word spider comes from an Old English term that means to spin.

Spiders who spin webs usually cant see very well, so they eat the food that comes to them. Their webs are like sticky traps. Webs can be as wide as five feet across! (Thats more than one and a half meters!)

Even spiders that dont spin webs can use silk to catch their food. Some use it like a cowboys rope. Others shoot the sticky silk at their , which makes it hard for them to move or see.

Jumping spiders do not spin webs. Instead they secrete a silk tether that they use to jump from place to place.

The wolf spider, unlike its terrifying name, helps people because it loves to dine on bothersome flies.

Most people think of spiders as a kind of .

Many insects have wings, but arachnids dont. Other arachnids that are often confused with insects include scorpions and ticks.

Types of Arachnids

An insects body has three parts, a head, thorax, and abdomen. But the spiders body has only two main sections. The spiders upper body combines the head and thorax (its chest) into a section called the . A shell called a carapace protects this section. The eight legs of the spider, in four sets of two, are attached to the cephalothorax. This section is also where the spiders eyes are.

Many spiders have eight eyes, in four sets of two, just like their legs. Some have fewer. There are spiders that live in dark caves that have no eyes at all!

A green lynx spider has eight eyes on top of its cephalothorax.

How many eyes does the female wolf spider have? If you counted eight, you are correct! All the better to see you with!

Spiders have many important functions. They breathe through their abdomens. Their hearts are in their abdomens. And this is also where female spiders have their ovary, with eggs to make baby spiders. A female spider lays about 100 eggs at a time, but larger ones can lay more than 2,000!