Arrowhead orbweaver
Verrucosa arenata
Name means: “warty, sandy (Latin words for the little bumps on its body and for sand)”
The arrowhead orbweaver has a pointy, triangle-shaped body, just like the tip of an arrow. On its back is a big white or yellow triangle. Unlike most web spiders, it sits in its web with its head pointing up.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Across North America, in woods, parks, gardens and yards with trees and bushes
Length
0.4 to 1.4 cm (0.16 to 0.55 in)
What does it eat?
It catches insects in its strong round web and reels them in.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a row🍽️could run across a dinner table in 2.6 seconds⚡moves 28 times its own body length every second
How big is Arrowhead orbweaver 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)
Arrowhead orbweaver about 1.4 km/h (0.87 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
Yellow arrowhead spiders catch more insects, but white ones are more common in the breeding season.
2
It hunts by day, and by midday its web is often broken by insects.
3
Its web is stronger than the webs of most orb weavers.
4
The males are small, have no triangle, and are rarely seen.
you asked
Most asked questions about Arrowhead orbweaver
?Why is it called the arrowhead spider?
Its body is shaped like a triangle, just like the tip of an arrow.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Verrucosa arenata
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Triangle orb weaver, Arrowhead spider
Where the facts come from
- Verrucosa arenata (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 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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