White-tailed spider
The white-tailed spider is a slim, dark grey spider shaped like a little cigar. At the very end of its body it has a white spot, like a tiny white tail. It lives in Australia and New Zealand, in gardens and houses.
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Fun facts
It does not build a web. It walks around at night looking for spiders to eat.
The white spot on its tail stays all its life, even when its other spots fade.
The mother lays pinkish eggs in a flat silk bag and guards them until they hatch.
Most asked questions about White-tailed spider
?What does a white-tailed spider eat?
Other spiders, especially the black house spider.
?How big is a white-tailed spider?
Up to 18 millimetres long, with legs spreading about 28 millimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lampona cylindrata
- Named by
- L. Koch, 1866
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Lamponidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Lamponidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Whitetail
Where the facts come from
- White-tailed spider (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 Caroline Harding, MPI. CC BY 3.0 au, 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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