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 sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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