Papuan hermit spider
Nephilengys papuana
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersRainforests and jungles8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Papuan hermit spider is a big spider from New Guinea and northern Australia. The female is a giant compared to the male. She is almost five times longer than him.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
New Guinea and tropical Queensland in Australia
Length
0.6 to 2.8 cm (0.24 to 1.1 in)
males are much smaller than femalesWhat does it eat?
It catches insects that fly into its web.

How big is it?
How long is it?
๐as long as 5 grains of rice in a row๐ฝ๏ธcould run across a dinner table in 1.8 seconds
How big is Papuan 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)
Papuan hermit spider about 2 km/h (1.2 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
A female is about 28 millimetres long, but a male is only about 6 millimetres.
2
Its name comes from Papua, part of the big island of New Guinea.
3
It used to be counted as a kind of another hermit spider, but now it is its own species.
you asked
Most asked questions about Papuan hermit spider
?How big is the Papuan hermit spider?
Females are about 28 millimetres long, while males are only about 6 millimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Nephilengys papuana
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Nephilidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Nephilidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Nephilengys papuana (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 Summerdrought. CC BY-SA 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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