Scimitar-horn kitespider
Gasteracantha falcicornis
The scimitar-horn kitespider has a bright red body with deep black dots. On each side sticks out a long, curved black horn, like a pirate's sword. It sits in a round web high up in the trees.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Eastern and southern Africa, from Tanzania to South Africa, high in trees and bushes
What does it eat?
It catches insects that fly into its round web.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Scimitar-horn kitespider 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
Its web hangs from a long line of silk. The line can be longer than the web, so the spider seems to float in the air.
2
It sometimes decorates its web with little tufts of silk.
3
It is busy in the daytime and leaves its web up instead of taking it down.
4
The female is bigger and more colourful than the male. Scientists have only described the female.
you asked
Most asked questions about Scimitar-horn kitespider
?Where does the scimitar-horn kitespider live?
In eastern and southern Africa, in webs high in trees and tall bushes.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Gasteracantha falcicornis
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- Africa
Where the facts come from
- Gasteracantha falcicornis (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 Nhobgood Nick Hobgood. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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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