Nursery web spider
The nursery web spider is a long-legged hunting spider with a slim body and a pale stripe down its back. It does not catch food in a web. Instead it builds a silk tent, a nursery, to keep its babies safe.
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Fun facts
To win a female, the male brings her a present: an insect wrapped in white silk.
Some males even play dead while courting the female.
When the babies leave the egg sac, they live in a protective web their mother made, drinking water drops.
It is busy even on warm winter days.
In 2002 it was voted Spider of the Year.
Most asked questions about Nursery web spider
?Why is it called a nursery web spider?
Because the mother builds a silk tent, like a nursery, where her babies live safely at first.
?How big is a nursery web spider?
Males are 10 to 13 millimetres long and females 12 to 15.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pisaura mirabilis
- Named by
- Clerck, 1757
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Pisauridae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Pisauridae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia
- Also known as
- Bridal gift spider, Cunning spider, Predatory spider
Where the facts come from
- Pisaura mirabilis (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 Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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