Shorthorn kitespider
The shorthorn kitespider is an African spider that builds round webs high up in trees and tall bushes. Its safety line is often longer than the web itself, so the spider seems to float in the air. It is busy during the day and leaves its web up.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its web is usually built above your head, high in trees or tall shrubs.
The long silk line that holds up its web makes the spider look as if it is floating in mid-air.
It sometimes decorates its web with little tufts of silk.
In South Africa it lives everywhere from close to the sea up to more than 1,500 metres high.
Most asked questions about Shorthorn kitespider
?Where does the shorthorn kitespider live?
All over Africa, and on islands such as the Seychelles and São Tomé.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Gasteracantha sanguinolenta
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Araneidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
- Lives on
- Africa
- Also known as
- Short-wing kite spider
Where the facts come from
- Gasteracantha sanguinolenta (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 Peter Webb. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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