Toadlike bolas spider
Mastophora phrynosoma
The toadlike bolas spider is a spider from the United States that hunts in a very clever way. The grown-up female does not build a web at all. She swings a single silk thread with a sticky drop at the end, like a fishing line, and catches insects with it.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
The United States
What does it eat?
It catches insects. The female uses her sticky silk line, while males and young females grab their food with their legs.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Toadlike bolas 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
A bolas is a throwing rope with weights on the end. The spider's sticky drop on a line works in a similar way.
2
Sometimes the female uses more than one sticky drop on her line.
3
Males and young females do not use a line at all. They catch prey straight with their legs.
you asked
Most asked questions about Toadlike bolas spider
?How does a bolas spider catch food?
The female hangs out a single silk line with a sticky drop at the end and catches insects with it.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Mastophora phrynosoma
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Mastophora phrynosoma (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 2.0, 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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