Sooty orbweaver
The sooty orbweaver is a small spider from Australia that spins round, wheel-shaped webs. It is brown, grey or olive, often with a darker leaf-like pattern on its back. No two look quite the same, because their colours change so much.
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Fun facts
The females are much bigger than the males. A female can be up to 11 millimetres long, a male only about 5.
Its colours can be anything from reddish brown and dark brown to light beige and orange.
It arrived in New Zealand more than 20 years ago and now lives in cities like Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Scientists moved it from one group to another many times. In 2022 they finally gave it its own group, called Salsa.
The baby spiders have lighter coloured legs than the grown-ups.
Most asked questions about Sooty orbweaver
?Where does the sooty orbweaver live?
In south-eastern Australia and New Zealand, in gardens, bushes, forests and even swamps.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Salsa fuliginata
- Named by
- L. Koch, 1872
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Salsa fuliginata (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 Steven Wallace. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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