Asian hermit spider
Nephilengys malabarensis
Name means: “from the Malabar coast of southern India, where it was first found”
The Asian hermit spider is a big orb-weaving spider with yellow and black striped legs. The female is a giant compared to the male, who is tiny. It often lives right next to people's houses.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
South, Southeast and East Asia, from India and Sri Lanka to Japan and Indonesia
Length
0.5 to 1.9 cm (0.2 to 0.75 in)
females up to 19 mm, males about 5 mmWhat does it eat?
It catches insects in its web.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 3 grains of rice in a row🍽️could run across a dinner table in 2.1 seconds⚡moves 25 times its own body length every second
How big is Asian hermit spider compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Asian hermit spider about 1.7 km/h (1.1 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
The female can be more than three times as long as the male.
2
It is common around houses, and in Borneo some live at the entrances of caves.
3
A jumping spider called Portia hunts and eats it.
4
Under her body the living female has bright orange patches.
you asked
Most asked questions about Asian hermit spider
?How big is the Asian hermit spider?
Females are up to about 19 millimetres long, males only about 5.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Nephilengys malabarensis
- Named by
- Walckenaer, 1841
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Nephilidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Nephilidae
- Lives on
- Asia
Where the facts come from
- Nephilengys malabarensis (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 Len Worthington. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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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