Australian dewdrop spider
The Australian dewdrop spider is a tiny spider with a shiny silver body shaped like a little cone. It does not catch its own food in its own web. Instead it sneaks into the webs of big spiders and steals their leftovers.
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Fun facts
It lives on the webs of big orb-weaving spiders, like the golden orb-weavers, and steals small insects from them.
It builds its own thin support web so it can move about without the big spider feeling it.
Sometimes it even eats from the same insect while the big spider is eating it.
Spiders that have dewdrop spiders on their web grow more slowly and have to move their web more often.
It does not live in the cold southern half of New Zealand's South Island, maybe because it likes warmth.
Most asked questions about Australian dewdrop spider
?Why is it called a dewdrop spider?
Because its shiny silver body looks like a little drop of dew.
?What does the dewdrop spider eat?
Small insects that it steals from the webs of bigger spiders.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Argyrodes antipodianus
- Named by
- O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1880
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Theridiidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Theridiidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Dew drop spider
Where the facts come from
- Argyrodes antipodianus (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 iNaturalist username: flossiepip. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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