Christmas spider
The Christmas spider is a small shiny spider from Australia that looks like a tiny jewel. Its round back is black with white, yellow or orange patterns and has six little spikes sticking out. It is called the Christmas spider because there are the most of them in December and January, which is summer in Australia.
How big is it?
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Fun facts
Lots of Christmas spiders often build their webs together, all joined up into one big web city.
It has eight eyes in two rows.
Some of them turn darker in autumn.
It is the only kind in its whole group of spiders, so it is one of a kind.
There are five slightly different kinds of it, and one lives only on a few small islands.
Most asked questions about Christmas spider
?Why is it called the Christmas spider?
Because it is most common in December and January, around Christmas, which is summer in Australia.
?How big is the Christmas spider?
Quite small. Females grow to about 12 millimetres and males only about 5.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Austracantha minax
- Named by
- Thorell, 1859
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Jewel spider, Australian jewel spider, Six-spined spider, Spiny spider
Where the facts come from
- Austracantha (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Donald Hobern. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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