Spider Reports

We wrote reports on a spider of our choice.

We all did a fantastic job.

                                                            Garden Wolf Spiders

A Garden Wolf Spider belongs to the family called Lycosidae.

The Garden Wolf Spider is well known for its colour and shape. Its colour makes it hard to see as it blends in with the surrounding nature. It is shaped like a bean from a garden but slightly bigger. It moults by digging a burrow and then steads its skin.

The Garden Wolf Spider lives in leaves, cracks and wood heaps. The spider can live nearly everywhere. They mainly live in areas where it’s warm and doesn’t over heat from rays of the sun. They live in the middle of their webs, dragging prey to their main spying place.

Garden Wolf Spider eats flies and lots of small insects. They only hunt at night so birds won’t eat them. They are very small and camouflages well. When it hunts it gets its prey and uses venom to kill it. It waits for the prey to rot to juice and then drinks it. Although its bite is not painful to humans it is to their prey. The female also loves eating the male after mating. She then dies.

Garden Wolf Spiders are well known spiders.

Jordan

Tarantulas

Like all spiders, the tarantula is an arachnid. Tarantulas are incredibly easy to identify because their large size makes them distinctive. 

 Male tarantulas are normally 6-8cm in length while females are usually 14-16cm. The largest tarantula to be recorded was a full 20cm. Apart from size, you can spot tarantulas by its distinctive markings. Most tarantulas have a greyish-brownish abdomen with creamy patches and black and white banded legs. They also have bright yellow lines on the bottom of their front legs symbolising that they’re poisonous. 

Tarantulas are found in South and Central America as well as Africa and the southern part of North America. Most tarantulas dig burrows with their fangs to live in but some just steal someone else's. Some tarantulas even live in trees! Tarantulas can also use their silk as a wall paper to stop cave-ins.

Tarantulas hunting technique is different to most spiders, while most spiders spin webs to catch their dinner, the tarantula uses the cover of night to sneak up and pounce on its prey. They eat small animals such as insects, grasshoppers and beetles. Although some types of tarantula, like the Goliath Bird-eating spider will go after bigger meals, and catch things like lizards, frogs, snakes, bats and small birds.

One of the biggest dangers to tarantulas is…people. As well as being made pets, some countries eat them! They have a nutty taste kind of like peanut butter. 

Devon