Two-spined spider
The two-spined spider is a small, very colourful spider. The female has a yellow and olive body with two white horns sticking up from her back. She spins a round web at night and eats it again in the morning.
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Fun facts
In the daytime the females often hide on the undersides of citrus tree leaves.
The males are tiny, only about 2.5 to 3 millimetres long, and have no horns or bright colours.
The males look so different that scientists first thought they were a different kind of spider.
It was first seen in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1971, and has since spread a long way south.
The female guards a small, papery, brown egg sac shaped like a spindle.
Most asked questions about Two-spined spider
?Why is it called the two-spined spider?
Because the female has two white horn-like spines on her back.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Poecilopachys australasia
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Two-spine spider
Where the facts come from
- Poecilopachys australasia (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 S.E. Thorpe. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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