Spiders leave waste just like other animals. If you find small, dark stains in your home, spiders likely left them. Spider waste often looks like a messy stain instead of a neat pellet. You might see a tiny paint splatter on walls, ceilings, or furniture. If you know what spider waste looks like and where…
If you have wondered who is Spiders Georg, the short answer is that he is a fictional Tumblr character created to joke about a bad spider-eating statistic. The meme turns a false-sounding claim into a fake explanation, so the “average” gets distorted by one wildly unusual person. Spiders Georg is a joke about a statistical…
Florida has a lot of spider life, and most of it is harmless. If you are trying to figure out what spiders are in Florida, you will usually see jumping spiders, wolf spiders, orb-weavers, house spiders, and a few venomous species that require caution. Most spiders in Florida help control pests. The ones people worry…
A wide range of animals eat spiders. Birds, lizards, frogs, toads, fish, wasps, centipedes, bats, and even other spiders all hunt spiders. Most spider predators act opportunistically and catch spiders when they can. The exact predators of spiders change with habitat, size, and time of day. A spider that is safe in one place may…
Spiders are ancient arthropods, and their story reaches back far earlier than most people expect. If you ask did spiders exist before trees, the earliest spider relatives appeared around 400 million years ago. True spiders show up later in the fossil record, around the same broad window as early land plants and before many modern…
Many spiders are far less threatening than they look. A small group is widely seen as calm, useful, and easy to live near. If you are asking what spiders are friendly to humans, the best-known choices are the ones that stay shy, avoid people, and help control pests around your home. The safest “friendly” spiders…
Spiders in the UK usually help more than harm. Most spiders who bite UK residents do so only when they feel trapped or threatened. Dangerous bites are rare, and many skin marks blamed on spiders come from other causes. If you know which species are likely to bite, what a bite looks like, and how…
Ancient spiders and spider-like arachnids lived on land long before dinosaurs appeared. Fossil evidence shows that the spider lineage stretches back about 400 million years, so spiders existed during the time of dinosaurs and had already been around for a very long time. By the time dinosaurs evolved, spiders and their relatives had already spread…
You may wonder what spiders are venomous. Most spiders have venom, but very few are truly dangerous to people. In the United States, the black widow and the brown recluse are the main spiders of concern. Many other species only cause mild bites or are mistaken for more harmful spiders. A small number of spiders…
Spiders who appear to fly do not actually fly like birds or insects. They use a trick called ballooning, where silk threads catch the air and carry them away. Some spiders can travel surprisingly far through the air. In places like the U.S., tiny spiders and spiderlings may look like they are drifting or floating…