Crafty fishing spider
Dolomedes facetus
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersPonds, rivers and shores8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin
The crafty fishing spider is a fairly big spider that lives by ponds and streams in Australia. Fishing spiders like it hunt at the edge of the water. It is also called the clever fishing spider.
Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Australia, by freshwater ponds and streams near the coast, and now also New Zealand
What does it eat?
Like other fishing spiders, it hunts small animals at the water's edge, such as insects.
How fast is it?
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Crafty fishing spider about 1.2 km/h (0.75 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
It lives only in Australia, from Western Australia all the way to Tasmania.
2
It is most common in the warm north, in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
3
People carried it to New Zealand by accident, and now it lives there in the wild too.
you asked
Most asked questions about Crafty fishing spider
?Where does the crafty fishing spider live?
In Australia, by ponds and streams near the coast. It now lives in New Zealand too.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dolomedes facetus
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Pisauridae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Pisauridae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Clever fishing spider
Where the facts come from
- Dolomedes facetus (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 Andrew Townsend. CC BY 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.
Bug Wiki honey jar For grown-ups: Bug Wiki is free, with no ads and no tracking. A small tip helps keep it online.Leave a tip
European garden spider
Goliath birdeater
Brown recluse
Redback spider
Yellow garden spider
Bold jumping spider
Willow rosette gall midge
Small spreadwing
Charcoal-winged percher
Water-meadow grasshopper
Dark whiteface
White-kneed mosquito