Can you please tell me fun facts about spiders?

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I'm really scared of spiders and it's annoying. Where I live, there are no really dangerous spiders. I'm an adult, I should be able to approach a scared little animal without losing it.

Are there people on here who like spiders, maybe even whose special interest they are, and who can tell me funny, cute fun-facts about spiders, so I hopefully start to find them cute and interesting, rather than alien-like and terrifying?

I really appreciate it! But please no photos

The yellow orb weaver (garden spider) makes it's web vibrate if you approach it or put your hand near the spider . I think it does this as a means of trying to scare off what it perceives to be a potential preditor.

 

[Au Naturel]

Some orb weavers eat their webs every day and respin them. Pollen that gets caught on the sticky strands is a significant source of nutrition for them.

 

[Outdated]

The yellow orb weaver (garden spider) makes it's web vibrate if you approach it or put your hand near the spider . I think it does this as a means of trying to scare off what it perceives to be a potential preditor.

I've seen them do that and wondered why they were doing it. There's dozens of different species of them, we have quite a few in Australia and some of them get pretty big.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I've seen them do that and wondered why they were doing it. There's dozens of different species of them, we have quite a few in Australia and some of them get pretty big.

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Yes, we have them too. In Florida. I believe I also saw them in the Midwest when I was living there. I once found a hummingbird trapped in the web. I released it.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Wow! And I thought ours were pretty large, as spiders go. That one is at least twice as large as the variety that I look for here every autumn.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Yes, we have them too. In Florida. I believe I also saw them in the Midwest when I was living there. I once found a hummingbird trapped in the web. I released it.

I am glad that you were able to rescue the hummingbird. I like hummingbirds.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I am glad that you were able to rescue the hummingbird. I like hummingbirds.

Me, too.

 

[Outdated]

Yes, we have them too. In Florida. I believe I also saw them in the Midwest when I was living there. I once found a hummingbird trapped in the web. I released it.

Up around the top end we have these tiny little Ghost Bats. They're called that because they're so quick and so well camouflaged that you're never really quite sure if you've seen one or not. The only times I've ever seen one properly is when one gets caught in an orb weaver's web, or if it flew in to the ceiling fan.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Up around the top end we have these tiny little Ghost Bats. They're called that because they're so quick and so well camouflaged that you're never really quite sure if you've seen one or not. The only times I've ever seen one properly is when one gets caught in an orb weaver's web, or if it flew in to the ceiling fan.

11 centimeters long. We have bats that small, but are easy to see. I think the gray coloration is what makes them so hard to see.

 

[Outdated]

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11 centimeters long. We have bats that small, but are easy to see. I think the gray coloration is what makes them so hard to see.

Ours are only half that size and they have much smaller ears, same colour though. And they flit so fast. My dog used to go mental trying to catch them but sometimes she had as much trouble seeing them as I did.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Spiny Orb Weaver. I love this colorful neighbor.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Ours are only half that size and they have much smaller ears, same colour though. And they flit so fast. My dog used to go mental trying to catch them but sometimes she had as much trouble seeing them as I did.

Are you saying your ghost bats are only 5-1/2 cm long? I got the 11 inches from an Australian website.

 

[Outdated]

Are you saying your ghost bats are only 5-1/2 cm long? I got the 11 inches from an Australian website.

Yep, about a 2 1/2 inch wingspan. That's why your hummingbird story made me think of them. They don't roost in family groups either, usually singly or sometimes in pairs. But there's probably half a dozen different species around the country that locals call ghost bats.

More than 1/3 of Australia's wildlife still isn't documented.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Yep, about a 2 1/2 inch wingspan. That's why your hummingbird story made me think of them. The don't roost in family groups either, usually singly or sometimes in pairs. But there's probably half a dozen different species around the country that locals call ghost bats.

More than 1/3 of Australia's wildlife still isn't documented.

Of course. A biologist’s dream world.

 

[Outdated]

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Spiny Orb Weaver. I love this colorful neighbor.

There's some really cool different variations of them too, this one's from up near Darwin.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Long Winged Kite Spider. Africa. Not as fierce as it looks. It’s less than 1/2 inch.

 

[tree]

 

[RemyZee]

Spiders and Luck.

I think this comes from England where they have a similar spider. The Money Spider is tiny, so small that you have to look twice to see if it's an ant or a mosquito. They are lucky, but luck can be good or bad. The Money Spider crawling on to your hand means money, but which hand? We give with the right and receive with the left.

And some of them are outright just pretty, and incredibly amusing to watch. A lot of Australian wildlife hasn't been properly recorded and documented yet, we found more than another 100 species of spider just in the last 10 years. Here's one of the newer ones:

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those colors!