Green-pea spider
Araneus apricus
Name means: “sunny or delightful”
The green-pea spider is a web-building spider from warm parts of Africa. It spins a round web and makes a little hiding place at one side of it. From there it waits for insects to fly in.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Much of Africa, from São Tomé to South Africa, and Yemen and Socotra, in grassland, bush and orchards
What does it eat?
It eats insects that get caught in its round web.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Green-pea 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 lives everywhere from the seaside to more than 1,500 metres up in the hills.
2
In South Africa it has been found in avocado, orange and macadamia orchards and in tomato fields.
3
It was first described in 1884 from the island of São Tomé, using just one female spider.
4
It lives safely in more than ten nature parks, among them the famous Kruger National Park.
you asked
Most asked questions about Green-pea spider
?Where does the green-pea spider live?
In many countries of Africa and in Yemen. It is common in South Africa.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Araneus apricus
- Named by
- Karsch, 1884
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- Africa, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Araneus apricus (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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