Hawaiian happy-face spider
The Hawaiian happy-face spider is a tiny spider with a see-through yellow body and long, thin legs. Some of them have red and black marks on their back that look just like a smiley face. Every one can look a little different.
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Fun facts
Its body can turn green or orange for a while, depending on what it has just eaten.
Not every happy-face spider smiles. Most of them are plain yellow, and the patterns look different from island to island.
Having lots of different looks helps it hide from birds, because a bird looking for one kind of spider may miss the others.
Its body is so clear that you can almost see through it.
Some have a white pattern, made from a kind of waste the spider stores under its skin instead of getting rid of it.
Most asked questions about Hawaiian happy-face spider
?Why does it have a smiley face?
The face is just a colour pattern on its back. Different patterns may help it hide from hungry birds.
?How big is the happy-face spider?
Its body is less than 5 millimetres long, smaller than a grain of rice.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Theridion grallator
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theridiidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theridiidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Theridion grallator (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 Nate Yuen. 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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