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Spider
Nursery web spider, Pisaurina mira: female with egg sac
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Arachnida
Order:
Araneae

Clerck, 1757
Suborders

Araneomorphae
Mesothelae
Mygalomorphae
See the taxonomy section for families

Spiders are predatory invertebrate animals that produce silk, and have two segments, eight legs, and no wings. Spiders are classified in the order Araneae, one of serveral orders within the larger class of arachnids, a group which also contains scorpions, whip scorpions, mites, ticks, and Opiliones (harvestmen). The study of spiders is known as arachnology, and those who study spiders are arachnologists.

Many spiders hunt by building webs to trap insects. These webs are made of spider silk, a thin, strong protein strand extruded by the spider from spinnerets most commonly found on the end of the abdomen. For its weight, spider silk is five times stronger than steel. All spiders produce silk, although not all use it to spin elaborate traps. Silk can be used to aid in climbing, forming smooth walls for burrows, building egg sacs, wrapping prey, temporarily holding sperm and for many other applications.

All but one genus of spiders have the ability to inject venom in order to kill prey and also to protect themselves. Only a limited subset of spiders can produce significant medical problems by biting humans. Many other of the larger kinds of spiders can give bites that cause discomfort that may continue for some time but will not produce lasting effects.

Morphology and development

Spider anatomy:
(1) four pairs of legs
(2) cephalothorax
(3) opisthosoma

Spiders, unlike insects, have only two tagmata instead of three; a fused head and thorax (called a cephalothorax or prosoma) and an abdomen (called the opisthosoma). Except for some few species of very primitive spiders (Liphistiidae), the abdomen has lost its external segmentation. The abdomen and cephalothorax are connected with a thin waist called the pedicle or the pregenital somite. This waist is actually the last segment (somite) of the cephalothorax and is lost in most other members of the Arachnida (in scorpions it is only detectable in the embryos).

Spiders also have eight legs (insects have six), no antennae, and their eyes are single lenses rather than compound eyes. They have pedipalps (or just palps), at the base of which are coxae or maxillae next to their mouth that aid in ingesting food; the ends of the palp are modified in adult males into elaborate and often species-specific structures used for mating. Since they don't have any antennae, they are using specialised and sensitive hairs on their legs to pick up scent, sounds, vibrations and air currents.

Respiration and circulation

Spiders have an open circulatory system; i.e., they do not have true blood, or veins to convey it. Rather, their bodies are filled with haemolymph, which is pumped through arteries by a heart into spaces called sinuses surrounding their internal organs.

Spiders have developed several different respiratory anatomies, based either on book lungs, a tracheal system, or both. Some very small spiders probably also directly breathe through their body surface. Primitive mygalomorph spiders have two pairs of book lungs filled with haemolymph, where openings on the ventral surface of the abdomen allows air to enter and diffuse oxygen. Modern araneomorph spiders primarily have an anterior pair of book lungs intact and the posterior pair of breathing organs modified into tracheae, through which oxygen is diffused into the haemolymph. In the tracheal system oxygen interchange is much more efficient, enabling cursorial hunting (hunting involving extended pursuit) and other advanced characteristics.

Vision

Multiple eyes of jumping spider. Species Platycryptus undatus.

Spiders usually have eight eyes in various arrangements, a fact which is used to aid in taxonomically classifying different species. Sometimes one pair of eyes is better developed than the rest, or there are only three pairs, or even no eyes at all. Several families of hunting spiders, such as wolf spiders and jumping spiders, have developed good to excellent vision. The main pair of eyes in jumping spiders even sees in colors. However, most spiders that lurk on flowers, webs and other fixed locations waiting for prey tend to have very poor eyesight, but possess an extreme sensitivity to vibrations, which aids in prey capture.

Life cycle

Spiderlings on a web

The spider life cycle progresses through three stages: the embryonic, the larval, and the nympho-imaginal (Foelix, 1996).

The time between when an egg is fertilized and when the spider begins to take the shape of an adult spider is referred to as the embryonic stage (Foelix, 1996). As the spider enters the larval stage. it begins to look more and more like an adult spider (Foelix, 1996). It enters the larval stage as a prelarva and, through subsequent moults, it reaches its larval form, a spider-looking, non self-sufficient animal feeding off its yolk supply (Foelix, 1996). After a few more moults (also called instars) body structures become differentiated. Soon, all organ systems are complete and the animal begins to hunt on its own; it has reached the nympho-imaginal stage (Foelix, 1996).

The exoskeleton of a spider after moulting

This stage is differentiated into two sub-stages: the nymph, or juvenile stage and the imago, or adult stage (Foelix, 1996). A spider does not become sexually mature until it makes the transition from nymph to imago (Foelix, 1996). Once a spider has reached the imago stage, it will remain there until its death. After sexual maturity is reached, the general rule is that they stop molting, but the female of some non-araneomorphae species will continue to molt the rest of their life.

Many spiders may live only about a year, but a number will live two years or more, overwintering in sheltered areas (the annual influx of 'outdoor' spiders into houses in the fall is due to this search for a nice warm place to spend the winter). It is common for the tarantulas to live around twenty years.

Reproduction

Spiders reproduce by means of eggs, which are packed into silk bundles called egg sacs. Spiders often use elaborate mating rituals (especially in the visually advanced jumping spiders) to allow conspecifics to identify each other and to allow the male to approach close enough to inseminate the female without triggering a predatory response. If the approach signals are exchanged correctly, the male spider must (in most cases) make a timely departure after mating to escape before the female's normal predatory instincts return.

Sperm transmission from male to female occurs indirectly. When a male is ready to mate, he spins a web pad upon which he discharges his seminal fluid. He then dips his pedipalps (also known as palpi), the small, leg-like appendages on the front of his cephalothorax, into the seminal fluid, picking it up by capillary attraction. Mature male spiders have swollen bulbs on the end of their palps for this purpose, and this is a useful way to identify the sex of a spider in the field. With his palps thus charged he goes off in search of a female. Copulation occurs when the male inserts one or both palps into the female's genital opening, known as the epigyne. He transfers his seminal fluid into the female by expanding the sinuses in his palp.

Pisaura mirabilis guarding her egg sac, Jerusalem, Israel

Very unusual behaviour is seen in spiders of the genus Tidarren: the male amputates one of his palps before maturation and enters his adult life with one palp only. The palpi constitute 20% of the body mass of males of this species, and since this weight greatly impedes its movement, by detaching one of the two he gains increased mobility. In the Yemeni species Tidarren argo, the remaining palp is then torn off by the female. The separated palp remains attached to the female's epigynum for about four hours and apparently continues to function independently. In the meantime the female feeds on the palpless male. (Journal of Zoology (2001), 254:449-459 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0952836901000954)

Do female spiders eat their mates?

It is often said that the male (usually significantly smaller than the female, down to 1% of her size as seen in Tidarren sisyphoides) is likely to be killed by the female after the coupling, or sometimes even before intercourse has been initiated. This supposed propensity is what gave the black widow spider, Latrodectus mactans, its name. However, the three species of North American black widows do not seem to usually kill the male (although they have been known to). Males can sometimes even live in the web of a female for a while without being harmed in any way. The male Australian redback spider Latrodectus hasselti is killed ritually by the females after it inserts its second palpus in the female genital opening; in over 60% of cases the female then eats the male. Although the male Latrodectus hasselti may sometimes die during mating without the female actually consuming it, this species represents a possible strategy of "male sacrifice". The male redback, while copulating, 'somersaults' and twists its abdomen directly onto the fangs of its mate. Most males get consumed at this stage (Andrade 2003 reports 65%). Males that 'sacrifice' themselves gain the benefit of increasing their paternity relative to males who do not get cannibalized (see Andrade 2003, Behavioral Ecology vol.14:531-538).

Miturga species in web under rock

However, despite these examples and many other similar reports, the theory of the 'sacrificial male' has become greater than the truth. Mating of spiders is not always followed by cannibalism. Rainer F. Foelix, (1982), says "The supposed aggressiveness of the female spider towards the male is largely a myth... only in some exceptional cases does the male fall victim to the female.". Michael Roberts (1995) says "It is rare for a fit male to be eaten by the female..." And yet, spider cannibalism been proved to occur in some species more than in others, mainly species belonging to Latrodectus.

There has always been speculation on why this sacrifice of male mates might occur despite the fact that there is an obvious disadvantage to the sacrificial males. One theory is that once the male has mated, he is unlikely to mate again and so then any further extension of his life serves no evolutionary purpose, while the sacrifice of the male may help increase egg production and offspring viability through increased nutrition provided to the female. Having more offspring would give the male the advantage of having his genes passed on over other males that might avoid being eaten. This scenario would be consistent with the hypothesis of Roberts (1995) that old or unfit males get eaten, whilst younger and fitter ones may survive to mate again.

Another reason promoting male self-sacrifice could be low probabilities of finding another mate. Males of some spider species have a mortality percentage of around 80% (for example L. hasselti from Andrade 2003, and other Latrodectus ssp.). Thus investing more in a mate that has already been found in order to increase paternity resulting from that copulation would increase the probability of transferring the males' genes to the next generation. An accessible discussion of such hypotheses can be found in the entertaining book by Judson (2002).

Ecology

Spiders have a great range of variation and lifestyle, although all are predatory.

While spiders are generalist predators, in actuality their different methods of prey capture often limits the type of prey taken. Thus web-building spiders rarely capture caterpillars and crab spiders that ambush prey in flowers capture more bees, butterflies and some flies than other insects. Groups of families that tend to take certain types of prey because of their prey capture methods are often called guilds. A few spiders are more specialized in their prey capture. Dysdera captures and eats sowbugs, pillbugs and beetles, while pirate spiders eat only other spiders. Bolas spiders in the family Araneidae use sex pheromone analogs to capture only the males of certain moth species. Despite their generally broad prey ranges, spiders are one of the most important links in the regulation of the populations of insects. Every day on a meadow they devour over 10 g/m² of insects and other arthropods. [citation needed]

Predatory techniques

A spider hiding in its leaf (located at the centre of its web)

There are many families of spiders, and the ways that they catch prey are diverse. But whether they catch insects, fish, small mammals, small birds, or some other small form of life, as soon as a spider makes contact with its prey it will generally attempt to bite it.

Spiders bite their prey, and occasionally animals that cause them pain or threaten them, to do two things. First, they inflict mechanical damage, which, in the case of a spider that is as large as or larger than its prey, can be severe. Second, they can choose to inject venom through their hollow fangs. Many genera, such as the widow spiders, inject neurotoxins that can spread through the prey's entire body and interfere with vital body functions. Other genera inject venom that operates to produce tissue damage at the site of the bite. Genera such as that of the brown recluse spider produce a necrotoxin. The necrotoxin is injected into prey where it causes the degradation of cell membranes. In the larger victims that do not die from these attacks, painful lesions over a fairly wide area of the body can remain active for fairly long periods of time. The spitting spiders have modified their poison glands to produce a mixture of venom and sticky substance that works as glue and immobilise the prey.

Digestion is carried out internally and externally. Spiders that do not have powerful chelicerae secrete digestive fluids into their prey from a series of ducts perforating their chelicerae. These digestive fluids dissolve the prey's internal tissues. Then the spider feeds by sucking the partially digested fluids out. Other spiders with more powerfully built chelicerae masticate the entire body of their prey and leave behind only a relatively small glob of indigestible materials. Spiders consume only liquid foods. Many spiders will store prey temporarily. Web weaving spiders that have made a shroud of silk to quiet their envenomed prey's death struggles will generally leave them in these shrouds and then consume them at their leisure.

Spider webs and prey capture

Main article: Spider web

Some spiders spin funnel-shaped webs, others make sheet webs, spiders like the black widow make tangled, maze-like, webs, and still others make the spiral "orb" webs that are most commonly associated with spiders. These webs may be made with sticky capture silk, or with "fluffy" capture silk, depending on the type of spider. Webs may be in a vertical plane (most orb webs), a horizontal plane (sheet webs), or at any angle in between. Most commonly found in the sheet-web spider families, some webs will have loose, irregular tangles of silk above them. These tangled obstacle courses serve to disorient and knock down flying insects, making them more vulnerable to being trapped on the web below. They may also help to protect the spider from aerial predators such as birds and wasps.

File:Spider01250.jpg
Having completed its web, a spider in the forests of Malaysia awaits its prey. Species unknown

The spider, after spinning its web, will then wait on, or near, the web for a prey animal to become trapped. The spider can sense the impact and struggle of a prey animal by vibrations transmitted along the web lines.

Other species of spiders do not use webs for capturing prey directly, instead pouncing from concealment (e.g. trapdoor spiders) or running them down in open chase (e.g. wolf spiders). The net-casting spider balances the two methods of running and web-spinning in its feeding habits. This spider weaves a small net which it attaches to its front legs. It then lurks in wait for potential prey and, when such prey arrives, lunges forward to wrap its victim in the net, bite and paralyze it. Hence, this spider expends less energy catching prey than a primitive hunter such as the Wolf spider. It also avoids the energy cost of weaving a large orb-web.

Some spiders manage to use the 'signaling snare' technique of a web without spinning a web at all. Several types of water-dwelling spiders will rest their feet on the water's surface in much the same manner as an orb-web user. When an insect falls onto the water and is ensnared by surface tension, the spider can detect the vibrations and run out to capture the prey.

A golden silk orb-weaver (Nephila clavipes?), member of the family Tetragnathidae

Defense

All spiders will attempt to protect themselves by biting, especially if they are unable to flee. Some tarantulas have a second kind of defense, a patch of urticating hairs, or urticating setae, on their abdomens, which is generally absent on modern spiders and Mesothelae. These ultra-fine hairs causes irritation and sometimes even allergic reactions in the attacker. Certain other species have specialized defense tactics. For example, the Golden Wheeling spider (Carparachne aureoflava) of the desert of Namibia escapes tarantula hawks (a species of wasp that lays its eggs in a paralyzed spider so the larvae have enough food when they hatch) by flipping onto its side and cartwheeling away.

Social spiders

A few species of spiders that build webs are living together in large colonies and are showing social behavior, even if it is not as well evolved as in social insects. The most social species are probably Anelosimus eximius, which can form colonies that counts up to fifty thousand individuals.

Evolution

Trigonotarbids belongs to some of the oldest known land arthropods. Like spiders, they were terrestrial, respired through book lungs, and walked on eight legs. However, they were not true spiders, not even ancestral to them, but represented independent offshoots of the Arachnida.

True spiders (thin-waisted arachnids) evolved about 400 million years ago, and were among the first species to live on land. They are distinguished by abdominal segmentation and silk producing spinnerets. The first known fossil spider, Attercopus fimbriungus, lived 380 million years ago during the Devonian. Attercopus is placed as sister-taxon to all living spiders, on the basis of characters of the spinneret and the arrangement of the patella­tibia joint of the walking legs.

Most of the early segmented fossil spiders belonged to the Mesothelae, a group of primitive spiders with the spinnerets placed underneath the middle of the abdomen, rather than at the end as in modern spiders. They were probably ground dwelling predators, living in the giant clubmoss and fern forests of the mid-late Palaeozoic, where they were presumably predators of other primitive arthropods. Silk may have been used simply as a protective covering for the eggs, a lining for a retreat hole, and later perhaps for simple ground sheet web and trapdoor construction.

As plant and insect life diversified so also did the spider's use of silk. Spiders with spinnerets at the end of the abdomen (Suborder Opisthothelae with infraorders Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae) appeared more than 250 million years ago, presumably promoting the development of more elaborate sheet and maze webs for prey capture both on ground and foliage, as well as the development of the safety dragline. The oldest mygalomorph, Rosamygale, was described from the Triassic of France and belongs to the modern family Hexathelidae. Megarachne servinei from the Permo-Carboniferous was a giant mygalomorph spider and, with its body length of 339 mm and leg span of above 500 mm, the largest known spider ever to have lived on Earth.

By the Jurassic, the sophisticated aerial webs of the orb weaving spiders had already developed to take advantage of the rapidly diversifying groups of insects.

Types of spiders

The order Araneae is composed of two sub-orders: the Mesothelae, which contains the Family Liphistiidae, primitive burrowing spiders from Asia, and the Opisthothelae, which contains the vast majority of spiders. Opisthothelae is further divided up into two infraorders, the Mygalomorphae (trapdoor spiders, funnel-web spiders, and tarantulas) and Araneomorphae (the modern spiders).

Over 38,000 species of spiders have been identified, but because of their great ability for hiding, it is believed that about 200,000 species exist. All species of spider posess venom (with the exception of the families Uloboridae and Heptthelidae), but only 40 species are known to be potentially deadly to humans.

For an extensive list of the genera and species of the most common kinds of spiders world-wide, see Araneae taxonomy. For a guide to identifying spiders, see Spider finder (under construction)

Mesothelae

Main article: Mesothelae

Mesothelae is one suborder of spiders that include the families Liphistiidae, Heptathelidae, Arthrolycosidae, and Arthromygalidae. The latter two families are known only from fossil records. They belong to the Order Araneae.

Recent Mesothelae are characterized by the narrow sternum on the ventral side of the prosoma. Several plesiomorphic characters may be useful in recognizing these spiders: there are tergite plates on the dorsal side and the almost-median position of the spinnerets on the ventral side of the opisthosoma.

Mygalomorphae

Main article: Mygalomorphae

The Mygalomorphae, (also called the Orthognatha), are an infraorder of spiders. The latter name comes from the orientation of the fangs which point straight down and do not cross each other (cf araneomorph). This suborder includes the heavy bodied, stout legged spiders popularly known as tarantulas as well as the dangerous Australasian funnel-web spiders. They have ample poison glands that lie entirely within their chelicerae. Their chelicerae and fangs are large and powerful. Occasionally members of this suborder will even kill small fish, small mammals, etc. Most members of this infraorder occur in the tropics and subtropics, but their range can extend farther north, e.g. into the southern and western regions of the United States.

Araneomorphae

Main article: Araneomorphae

The Araneomorphae, (previously called the Labidognatha), are often known as the modern spiders. They are distinguished by having chelicerae that point diagonally forward and cross in a pinching action, in contrast to the Mygalomorphae (tarantulas and their close kin), where they point straight down. Most of the spiders that people encounter in daily life belong to this suborder.

There are approximately 50 families in this suborder.

File:Achaearanea tepidariorum (every1blowz).jpg
A tangleweb spider, species Achaearanea tepidariorum

Tangleweb spiders (Theridiidae)

Members of this group are characterized by irregular, messy-looking, tangled, three-dimensional (non-sticky) webs, generally low and anchored to the ground or floor and wall. They are commonly found in or near buildings; some build webs in bushes. The spider generally hangs in the center of its web, upside-down. Prey is generally ground-dwelling insects such as ants or crickets, in addition to small flying insects.

Widow spiders
Main article: Widow spider

Widows (Latrodectus spp.) are a large, cosmopolitan group; all with relatively dangerous bites. These are relatively large, 1/2 inch long. The bodies of the females are 'burly-looking'. They are generally dark, typically glossy black, and generally have a red mark on the glossy, smooth abdomen, on either its top or bottom surface. There are several species of Latrodectus, some with lighter overall coloration. They are all highly venemous, though the various "brown" species (L. geometricus, L. rhodenesies) are somewhat less so than the "black" varieties.

Examples of widow spiders include

Steatoda
Main article: Steatoda

The genus Steatoda is a large genus which includes many of the false black widows, as well as other types of cobweb spiders. Many specimens in this genus are sometimes mistaken for widows, but they have more flattened abdomens, and their abdominal markings are generally white stripes or dots rather than red dots. None of these spiders is truly dangerous, but some of them are medically significant, including:

  • S. grossa
  • S. nobilis
  • S. paykulliana
Other tangle-web spiders

Others are characterized by large, globular abdomens, thin, spindly legs. Often they display rather non-descript patterns in gray or brown and white. Examples:

Orb web spiders (Araneidae)

An Australian garden orb weaver spider eating a bee

These spiders spin the familiar spiral snare that most people think of as the typical spider web. On average, an orb-weaving spider takes 30 minutes to an hour to weave a web. They range in size from quite large (6+ cm) to very small (<1 cm), but all are quite harmless to humans, beyond the shock entailed from walking into a face-height web and having a large spider dangling from your nose. Many of the daytime hunters have a 'ferocious' appearance, with spines or large 'fangs', but they are almost invariably inoffensive, preferring to drop on a dragline to the ground when disturbed, rather than bite. That being said, some of these spiders can deliver painful bites.

Examples include:

Other forms of webs

Australasian funnel-web spider

This category is a "catch-all" comprising members of several different groups that spin non-sticky webs in a variety of structural styles. Some (the Linyphiidae) make various forms of bowl- or dome-shaped webs with or without a flat sheet or a tangled web above or below. Some make a flat platform extending from a funnel-shaped retreat, with generally a tangle of silk above the web. The common northern hemisphere 'funnel-web', 'house' or 'grass' spiders are only superficially similar to the notorious Sydney funnel-web spider, and are generally considered to be quite harmless (with one notable exception - the Hobo spider, below). Some of the more primitive group Atypidae may make tubular webs up the base of trees, from inside which they bite insects that land on the webbing. These spiders look quite ferocious, but are not generally considered to be particularly dangerous to humans.

Hunting spiders

A Brachypelma smithi

Spiders that ambush their prey

This is another catch-all category that includes a diverse collection of spiders. Some actively lure prey (the Bolas spiders) and may capture them with a sticky ball of silk on a line; others wait in a high-traffic area and directly attack their prey from ambush.

Other spiders

Bird Dropping Spider with its unusual eggs
An Ant Mimic Spider

Creatures often mistaken for spiders

  • Camel spider, not actually a spider at all, but rather a solifugid (also commonly called sun-spiders or wind-scorpions). Very well known as the source of many urban legends (no venom)
  • Daddy long-legs or harvestman, a member of the order Opiliones. These round-bodied arachnids have only two eyes and their heads are fused to their bodies. However, the name "daddy long-legs" is sometimes used to refer to cellar spiders, which have a similar leg shape; these are true spiders but not dangerous.

Spider bites

Main article: Spiders having medically significant venom

Most spiders are unlikely to bite humans because they do not identify humans as prey. Spiders, even small ones, may however bite humans when pinched. For instance, a common jumping spider (Family: Salticidae), around 3/8 inch (1 cm) long, when pinched between the folds of a human's palm may inflict a bite that is about as painful as a bee sting.

Spiders in the world which have been linked to fatalities in humans, or have been shown to have potentially fatal bites by toxicology studies of their venom, include:

Spiders which likely are not deadly to humans, but which are nonetheless medically significant include:

Spiders which can inflict painful bites (often similar to a bee sting), but whose bits generally do not cause any systemic or long-lasting effects, include:

None of these spiders will intentionally "come after you," but they should be removed from one's house to avoid accidental injury. Many authorities warn against spraying poisons indiscriminately to kill all spiders, because doing so may actually remove one of the biological controls against incursions of the more dangerous species by ridding them of their competition.

If dangerous spiders are present in your area, be mindful when moving cardboard boxes and other such objects that may have become the shelter of a poisonous spider. There is no need to be fearful; just do not grab a spider.

Symbolism

The spider symbolizes patience, for its hunting with web traps. Some fictional and mythological characters are related to spiders:

The Italian dance and music tarantella is related to tarantulas, either as a folk remedy for bites or from its vigorous movements.

  • "Spider" (aka Ron Entwistle) is an American song writer and producer from Los Angeles.
  • Spider-Man is a Marvel Comics character created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, about a young student who is turned into a superhero after being bitten by a "radioactive spider".
  • Spider-Man (2002) is a film featuring the character, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and Willem Dafoe.
  • Spider-Man 2 (2004) is the sequel to the above.
  • Spider-Man 3 (2007) is a planned second sequel.
  • See also Spider-Man (disambiguation) for other references and works based on the Spider-Man character.
  • Arachnophobia (film)-a movie directed by Frank Marshall, in which spiders multiply in large numbers and kill humans.
    • Arachnophobia (video game)-a video game based on the film Arachnophobia, developed by BlueSky Software and Disney for the DOS and Commodore 64 platforms.
  • Spider!-a 1998 film in which a giant spider comes from outer space through a shuttle which is sent on an outer space mission. Once the Spider arrives on Earth, it eats human beings, and uses their bodies to lay eggs, and more spiders come out of the human body.
  • Eight Legged Freaks-a 2002 film in which spiders get mutated because of harmful nuclear waste in mines and hence become oversized creatures and hunt humans.
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets-Hagrid's pet creature is a giant spider, which then runs away to live in the forest.
  • Kingdom of the Spiders is a film starring William Shatner as a vetinarian forced to deal with spiders after the spiders normal food sources were destroyed by heavy use of pesticides.
  • Spinarak and Ariados are spider-like monsters from the Pokémon franchise.
  • Shelob, a giant spider-like creature in the Lord of the Rings saga.
  • In Jumanji (film), one of the group of creatures which appears is a group of giant spiders.
  • Charlotte's Web is a 1952 children's novel by E. B. White about an intelligent farm spider whose machinations save a young pig from the slaughterhouse.
  • The novel Web by John Wyndham is set on an island populated by spiders that have developed a co-operative social structure similar to ants.
  • A famous deleted film scene from the 1933 King Kong is called "the spider pit scene". In this scene, several sailors are chased by King Kong onto a log lying over a fissure. Kong starts to shake the sailors off the log, until he finally drops the log down the fissure. The surviving sailors are eaten alive by giant bugs, including a spider. This scene was taken out of the film because it was too shocking. It is still missing to this very day, even though many film experts are hunting for it. It may have been burned. King Kong`s director Merian C. Cooper was known to do that with deleted film. See also King Kong (1933 film)#Censorship. A similar scene was used in the 2005 remake, although it contained no spiders.

See also

References

  • The World of Spiders, by W. S. Bristowe Collins (New Naturalist), London 1958
  • The Life of the Spider, by John Crompton. Mentor, 1950.
  • Biology of Spiders, by Rainer F. Foelix, 1982 and second edition, 1996
  • The Book of the Spider, by Paul Hillyard, Random House, New York 1994
  • Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex, by Olivia Judson, Metropolitan Books 2002
  • How to Know the Spiders, by B. J. Kaston. Dubuque, 1953
  • Spiders, by Barbara York Main, Collins (The Australian Naturalist Library), Sydney 1976
  • Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe, by Michael J. Roberts, Collins, London 1995
  • Spiders of North America: an Identification Manual, by Darrell Ubick, Pierre Paquin, Paula E. Cushing, and Vincent Roth, American Arachnological Society 2005

Wise, David H. "Spiders in Ecological Webs." Cambridge University Press. Great Britain: 1993.

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