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spider
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lynx spider
Witness an orb-weaving spider using silk wrappings to immobilize grasshopper prey
spider
Do we really swallow spiders in our sleep?
Red widow spider brown recluse spider sheet-web weaver spider
Know how some spiders walk on the surface of the water
spider: trichobothrium Australian funnel-web spider
For Students
spider summary
Quizzes
Sea otter (Enhydra lutris), also called great sea otter, rare, completely marine otter of the northern Pacific, usually found in kelp beds. Floats on back. Looks like sea otter laughing. saltwater otters
Animal Group Names
Lion (panthera leo)
Deadliest Animals Quiz
Mute swan with cygnet. (birds)
Match the Baby Animal to Its Mama Quiz
Green tree python snake (Chondropython viridis) in a rainforest.
Creepy Crawlers Quiz
vulture. An adult bearded vulture at a raptor recovery center. The Gypaetus barbatus also known as the Lammergeier or Lammergeyer, is a bird of prey and considered an Old World vulture.
Animal Factoids
Read Next
Black widow spider
9 of the World’s Deadliest Spiders
Wasp spider. Argiope bruennichi. Orb-weaver spider. Spiders. Arachnid. Cobweb. Spider web. Spider's web. Spider silk. Black and yellow striped wasp spider spinning a web.
Do We Really Swallow Spiders in Our Sleep?
Discover
Ice Sledge Hockey, Hockey Canada Cup, USA (left) vs Canada, 2009. UBC Thunderbird Arena, Vancouver, BC, competition site for Olympic ice hockey and Paralympic ice sledge hockey. Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Vancouver Olympics
10 Best Hockey Players of All Time
Attack on Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor infographic. World War II. Hawaii. United States. Japan. SPOTLIGHT VERSION
Attack on Pearl Harbor Timeline
Horses. Equus caballus. Horse stable. A brown horse looks out from his stall through the window.
Horsing Around: 7 of the Weirdest Racehorse Names in History
Shah Jahan. Taj Mahal. Mughal architecture. Emperor Shah Jahan fifth Mughal Emperor (reigned 1628-1658) India, Himachal Pradesh, Basohli or Jammu and Kashmir, Mankot, circa 1690 Drawings; Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper (see notes)
6 Important Mughal Emperors
Vietnam War. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson awards the Distinguished Service Cross to First Lieutenant Marty A. Hammer, during a visit to military personnel, Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, October 26, 1966. President Johnson
Vietnam War Timeline
Remarkable new details of Pluto's largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 289,000 miles
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bird. mourning dove. pigeon and dove. Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) family Columbidae.
Nikola Tesla's Weird Obsession with Pigeons
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Also known as: Araneae, Araneida
Written by
Lorna R. Levi
Coauthor of A Guide to Spiders and Their Kin; cotranslator and coeditor of Invertebrate Zoology by A. Kaestner.
Lorna R. Levi,
Herbert W. Levi
Emeritus Professor of Biology, Harvard University; Curator of Arachnology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, 1966–91. Coauthor of A Guide to Spiders and Their Kin; cotranslator and coeditor of Invertebrate...
Herbert W. Levi•All
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Last Updated: • Article History

News •

Newly discovered fungus turns cave-dwelling spiders into ‘zombies’ • Feb. 14, 2025, 1:57 AM ET (CNN)
Scared of Spiders? Also Scared of Zombies? We Have Some Bad News. • Feb. 8, 2025, 4:23 AM ET (New York Times)
'Mind-Controlling' Fungus Turns Spiders Into 'Zombies' • Feb. 5, 2025, 12:50 AM ET (Newsweek)

The sex organs (gonads) of male and female spiders are in the abdomen. The eggs are fertilized, as they pass through the oviduct to the outside, with sperm stored in the seminal receptacles after mating. The fertilized egg (zygote) develops in the manner typical of arthropod eggs rich in yolk (see arthropod: Reproductive system and life cycle).

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