Masked vlei spider
Leucauge festiva
The masked vlei spider is a medium-sized African spider with a long body. On its back there is a brightly coloured pattern that looks like a mask. It builds a round web and hangs in the middle, head down, during the day.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
All over Africa, including Madagascar, often near water or in shady, damp places
What does it eat?
It catches small flying insects in its round, sticky web.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Masked vlei 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
It is active during the day, hanging head down in its web.
2
It often builds its web near water or in shady, damp spots.
3
It lives everywhere from near the sea up to almost 2000 metres high in the mountains.
4
It even lives in avocado and macadamia orchards and in pumpkin and tomato fields.
you asked
Most asked questions about Masked vlei spider
?Where does the masked vlei spider live?
All over Africa, from Ethiopia and Kenya down to South Africa, and on Madagascar.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Leucauge festiva
- Named by
- Blackwall, 1866
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Tetragnathidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Tetragnathidae
- Lives on
- Africa
- Also known as
- Festiva silver vlei spider
Where the facts come from
- Leucauge festiva (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 Peter Webb. CC BY 4.0, 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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