Common scorpion spider
Platyoides walteri
The common scorpion spider is a very flat spider from southern Africa. Its flat body lets it squeeze into narrow cracks. It often lives near people, hiding under flowerpots on porches.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Southern and eastern Africa, and now Australia too, often around houses
What does it eat?
It wanders around and catches small insects and other little creatures.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Common scorpion spider about 1.2 km/h (0.75 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It is the most common and widespread scorpion spider in southern Africa.
2
Most scorpion spiders live under bark or rocks, but this one likes houses and potted plants.
3
It has travelled to Australia and now lives there too.
4
It does not build a web to catch food. It wanders around looking for prey.
you asked
Most asked questions about Common scorpion spider
?Where does the common scorpion spider hide?
In narrow cracks, often under flowerpots on porches and verandas.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Platyoides walteri
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Trochanteriidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Trochanteriidae
- Lives on
- Africa, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Platyoides walteri (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 suncana. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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