Sneak spider
The sneak spider is a small European spider with a long, grey, sausage-shaped tummy. It does not spin a web to catch food. Instead it sneaks out at night and hunts on foot.
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Fun facts
During the day it rests in a little silk room under bark, stones and other things on the ground.
Its front part is dark brown, and its legs are pale brown with darker rings.
The females are a bit bigger than the males: about 6 to 7 millimetres compared with 5 to 6.
Its group once got the name Harpactes, but a bird already had that name, so in 1939 it was changed to Harpactea.
Most asked questions about Sneak spider
?Where does the sneak spider live?
All over Europe, including Britain. It hides under bark and stones in the day.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Harpactea hombergi
- Named by
- Scopoli, 1763
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Dysderidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Dysderidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Harpactea hombergi (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 Alexis Lours. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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