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Sticker of Tailed forest spider
Bug card No. 4278 of 4,939

Tailed forest spider

Arachnura feredayi
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersForests and woods8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The tailed forest spider has a body that ends in a long pointy tail. The tail looks just like a dry autumn leaf or a bit of dead wood, so the spider is very hard to spot. It lives only in New Zealand.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
New Zealand, in native forests and sometimes in gardens
Length
0.2 to 1.8 cm (0.08 to 0.71 in)
males are about 2 mm, females up to 18 mm
Top speed
about 1.6 km/h (0.99 mph)
On foot, estimate
What does it eat?
It catches small insects in its round, sticky web, which it builds low down near the ground.
For real!Photo of Tailed forest spider
Picture by Steve Kerr. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Tailed forest spider about 1.8 cm long (0.71 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 3 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 2.2 secondsmoves 25 times its own body length every second

How big is Tailed forest spider compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The mum is about six times bigger than the dad. He is tiny, brown and has no tail.

2

The mum hangs her egg sacs in a row at the top of the web, like a string of little brown sausages.

3

Every time she makes a new egg sac, she builds her whole web again so the newest sac sits closest to the middle.

4

Its web always has an empty V-shaped gap at the top, like a slice cut out of a cake.

5

Females can be yellow or yellowish green, so not all of them look the same.

you asked

Most asked questions about Tailed forest spider

?Where does the tailed forest spider live?

Only in New Zealand, in native forests and sometimes in gardens. It builds its web low between bushes and dead branches.

?Why does it have a tail?

The tail is the end of its body and looks like a dry leaf or dead wood. That helps it hide from hungry birds.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Arachnura feredayi
Named by
L. Koch, 1872
Group
Spiders
Family
Araneidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Scorpion-tailed spider

Where the facts come from

  1. Arachnura feredayi (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Steve Kerr. 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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More from the same group: Spiders

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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