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i found a black spider with two distinct red markings which where dots side by side and wondering if anyone knows what breed it is it was found near my bathroom wall??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaroncurrie69 (talk • contribs) 08:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
You did not say anything about the size of the spider or what it was doing near the wall. Check out the article on widow spiders first. If it is a roughly globular, glossy black spider and if the dots are on the underside of the abdomen, you would want to keep it away from people and pets. It is rare for widow spiders to go indoors, but if you did see a black widow in your bathroom it might have come up a pipe or something from the basement in search of warmth. As long as you don't pick it up or otherwise squeeze it, it would be hard to get bitten, but children might touch it. The dose of spider venom that one receives gets diluted by one's total body volume, so little kids get a much higher dose and can be killed if they are not treated.
There are lots of other black spiders, and some of them have red spots. There is one species of large wolf spider that has red spots at the outside corners of the fangs. They are not really black, but they can be pretty dark. They are very much inclined to run away, and are not inclined to bite. Another possible candidate would be some kind of jumping spider. There are lots of black jumping spiders with spots, but I am not familiar with one with two red spots. On the other hand, that family of spiders is huge.
If you ever see that spider again, maybe you could get a digital photo of it and post it somewhere.
If you want the spider out of your bathroom and don't want to kill your visitors, you could put a glass over it, slide a card under the mouth of the glass, and then pick the whole thing up. It must be pretty cold now where you are, but maybe putting it in a shed on the next warm day would give it a fair chance to find shelter and survive.P0M (talk) 10:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Minor typo in section 1.5 toward end of first para
Minor typo in section 1.5 toward end of first para
"in fact the human eye is only about fives times sharper than a jumping spider's"
the s following five should be deleted.
Motorcycle (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
It's not necessarily pointless trivia in this article (though its placement may be in question). Depictions of spiders in modern popular culture indicate what spiders mean to humans in the 20th and early 21st centuries, and I think there is a case to be made to say it's notable enough for a mention in an encyclopaedic article. In a similar vein, the following text was removed from the article: "In more modern times, spiders have been the subject of movies such as the 2002 comedy-horror Eight Legged Freaks." Both of these examples depict spiders as harmful and creatures that are feared, and this concept is recognised by people who are not themselves arachnophobic. This is partly due to arachnophobia being so common, but I think depictions of spiders in modern popular culture have a place in this article. The only question that needs to be asked is which examples are most important, since we need to discriminate, and these films are only two examples amongst many. leevclarke (talk) 02:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a rather long article, so the "culture" section has to be brief, and does not emphasise any particular artform or culture. If you start giving details of e.g. English-language movies since 1950, there would be a good case for giving other cultures and artforms an equal mention. I suspect the result would be a medium-sized article in its own right. --Philcha (talk) 06:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
References
^Maltin, L., and Edelman, R., ed. (2002). Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 2002. Signet. p. 58. ISBN9780451203922.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
It seems, at least to me, that merely representing one type of spider (Orb weaver) in the taxobox isn't really too good. Perhaps, if someone could do it when they have they have the time (I am not good at doing this), create a collage picture representing some of the major spiders into one picture. Something akin to the taxobox image in this article: Crurotarsi. --Spotty11222 (talk) 01:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Especially as orb-web spiders are a minority, they just spend more on advertising. But I've looked at Crurotarsi, and the collage does nothing for me. I'd be tempted to use the funnel-web pic, as that shows spiders' signature feature - the fangs. --Philcha (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
What is your point? There are a few species of spiders that may initiate hostilities with human being, but they are rare. Some among them have venom that can cause medical problems. So there are some dangers associated with them. The article has already covered these dangers in a responsible way.
What do you mean when you say that spiders are sometimes harmful? Other than occasionally biting people, they do no harm. They do not even poop on your lawn. If they all died you and everyone else would be knee deep in insects before you could buy a flame thrower. P0M (talk) 22:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I notice that three or more individuals have been swapping versions back and forth for the last several days. Let's not have an edit war or a revision war. If people will not have a rational discussion about proposed changes on this discussion page then things are likely to go from bad to worse.P0M (talk) 04:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Spider anatomy
It seems that a lot of the information in the spider anatomy article is duplicated or even exceeded here. Perhaps some of the material from this article should be moved there so that this article is less bulky and conforms to summary style. Also, I noticed that the diagrams at spider anatomy are much better than the ones here. Kaldari (talk) 23:51, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Re moving info to Spider anatomy, Spider is a GA (reassessed Oct 2008) while Spider anatomy is "unassessed" an dthe second half if it has no citations. It would be a disservice to readers to move info from a more reliable (because of the citations) to a less reliable one (too few citations). It would be worth discussing this when Spider anatomyreaches GA or better. --Philcha (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
This makes no sense to me. The reliability of the information doesn't change depending on which article it's in. The citations stay with the information. If you move information to the spider anatomy article, it's still cited and still reliable. It would certainly help improve the reliability of the spider anatomy article (which as you mention needs improvement). Summarizing the information here doesn't make it less reliable. Looking at it from the point of view of this article versus the other article doesn't make sense to me. It's not a competition between articles. The more all articles are reliable, the better. You don't edit articles according to their assessment status. That's putting the cart before the horse. Kaldari (talk) 16:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
It's not a matter of competition, it's about whether I'm happy about relying on an article that has not been proved to meet quality standards like WP:V. --Philcha (talk) 17:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
You might want to explain "the diagrams at spider anatomy are much better than the ones here". The tagmosis one is the same; Spider shows the head structures of the major arthropod groups, which Spider anatomy does not; Spider anatomy shows details of the leg anatomy, which Spider does not; the two use different images for internal anatomy. The one used at Spider works well with the text here, for example it is colour-coded for the major organ systems. --Philcha (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
One of the diagrams I was referring to was File:Spider-characteristics.png, which I already moved here. It was a definite improvement on File:Archindae_characters.jpg. The other one was the internal anatomy diagram. The one in spider anatomy is also color coded for the organ systems so I'm not sure why it wouldn't be an improvement on the diagram here, but if you think this one works better with the text, that's fine. Kaldari (talk) 16:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I prefer the existing one because:
It identifies organs by numbers rather than labels, so I can size it to suit the page layout and add a legend using {{Annotated image}}, a template I use a lot - check it out. The pic in Spider anatomy can't be displayed at a smaller size to suit the layout, because the text labels would be illegible - a pont I made at the Graphics workshop. Also a new version of the pic in Spider anatomy would be required for each non-English WP ; with {{Annotated image}}, editors can use the existing pic and change the labels to their language in the template. I "sold" {{Annotated image}} to a Dutch editor and the Dutch version of a diagram quantifying mass extinctions is used several times.
Since the colours are identifiers rather than realistic, I think they work better if they have higher contrast levels. -Philcha (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
{{editsemiprotected}} There are two references to a 'vegetarian spider', and one to a 'vegetarian species'. Vegetarianism is a human philosophy, not an evolutionary adaption. Rather, an animal which does not eat other animals is called a herbivore. These references should be replaced with 'herbivorous spider' and 'herbivorous species'. 80.42.31.240 (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I've edited this section, and never noticed this >.>
Both refs specifically use the term Vegetarian, so can someone a little better versed verify that this change was in the right direction? --KingÖomie15:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
The source says "predominantly vegetarian". "Herbivorous" is ambiguous - it could refer to any vegetarian or to one that eats grass rather than e.g. leaves (folivore) or fruit (frugivore). --Philcha (talk) 16:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Section missing
Araneomorphae is now just a blank section heading. Somebody had messed around with "spider bites." There was an unneeded wikilink within the title for the spider bite pictorial, and whoever did the most recent editing simply removed the entire illustration. I've fixed that, but then noticed that the formatting for that area of the article has become very strange. No time right now to chase this problem down. P0M (talk) 09:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I've asked for an admin to unprotected the article. I suggest 64.30.108.152 avoid SHOUTING, as that is often associated with undesirable behaviours like vandalism and others. --Philcha (talk) 06:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Up to end-Oct 2009, when Spider was semi-protected (i.e. protected against IPs but not against logged-in users), it was vandalised several times a day, and in a few cases it was necessary to paste in sections from older versions of the article - which is a PITA. Two admins have just reviewed the track record, and suggest keeping semi-protected. Perhaps you should register - it takes under 20 mins, including getting the confirmation email; you'll be edit semi-protected articles; you can set your own preferences. --Philcha (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Pending changes
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I was discussing spiders with my son and as always we referred to Wikipedia as our reference. However, there is still some confusion as the article on Spiders seems to say that venom injecting fangs qualify an arachnid (which is an eight legged) insect as a spider, and on the spider anatomy article it seems to say that the silk producing ability is the differentiating feature. Please clarify for me as well as for future wikipedians. Thanks speednat (talk) 02:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
You need to read the article. Spiders are not the only arachnids, which also include mites. Spiders are the only ones in which the chelicarae as modified as fangs for injecting venom, and also produced by spinnerets. The fossil record of spiders and their ancestors show how long the features have existed, but not exactly when they appeared. --Philcha (talk) 04:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I have read the pertinent portions of the article and I would not have asked if it was clear. I know what it says about what they (spiders) have in relations to arthropods and insects; however, it is not very clear as to what is a qualifying feature. For example, look at birds. Again, the question is posed as this is: Are spiders different from other arachnids and other insects in that they are eight legged (which makes them arachnids) and with fangs and spinnerets. Do all spiders have these two features? and do only spiders have these two features? speednat (talk) 01:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
You "I know what it says about what they (spiders) have in relations to arthropods and insects" shows need you need to read Arthropod and possibly other articles, before you stuff your son's head with mistakes. --Philcha (talk) 03:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
If you don't know, just say so. No need to get rude. Why are you being rude when a simple question is asked? If I have problem ascertaining the answer to that question due to ambiguity in two separate articles, then perhaps others will to. Instead of a comment of "You need to read the article", either answer the question or direct me to who can. Or just don't say anything. As I have said, it is not very clear and I am not an uneducated person. speednat (talk) 04:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
For the record, the synapomorphies that define the order Araneae are:
abdominal spinnerets and silk glands
cheliceral venom glands
male pedipalps modified for sperm transfer
lack of the trochanter-femur depressor muscle
See Coddington and Levi (1991). "Systematics and evolution of spiders (Araneae)". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 22: 565-592. Kaldari (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Inaccuracies in the lead sentence
Yesterday, I corrected a factual inaccuracy in the lead sentence. An hour later this was reverted by User:Philcha and remained reverted for most of today until I changed it back. The information in dispute is not controversial and can be verified in virtually any book or paper dealing with spider anatomy. As one example, you can take a look at figures 10-13 of "Pelegrina Franganillo and other jumping spiders formerly placed in the genus Metaphidippus (Araneae:Salticidae)", Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 154(4). These figures show a clear distinction between the fang and the entire chelicera. What's more, there is even a part of the chelicerae known as the "fang furrow" which is the groove on the chelicerae that the fang folds into. It is worrisome to see someone reverting factual corrections on such a high profile article that does not seem to be familiar with the subject or willing to investigate the accuracy of their assumptions. I would encourage anyone editing this article to be diligent about verifying the information presented, especially in the lead of the article. Kaldari (talk) 04:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
I have just checked Ruppert, E.E., Fox, R.S., and Barnes, R.D. (2004). Invertebrate Zoology (7 ed.). Brooks / Cole. pp. 571–584. ISBN0030259827, and you're right, "fang" is the distal section. Sorry.
However, you should check and update the main text first, and then check that the lead contains nothing that is in the main text. I think I've now done this, please tell me whether you agree. --Philcha (talk) 12:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to verify the information. I've cleaned up some of the wording in the body, so hopefully everything is consistent now. Kaldari (talk) 21:24, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Couple minor mistakes spotted
In Evolution->Family tree section:
"The cladogram on the right [...]", but there's no cladogram.
I was not aware that a "References" section was supposed to be a recapitulation of the works previously cited in the article. That does not seem to be common practice elsewhere in Wikipedia, but I may be mistaken. TomS TDotO (talk) 16:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
For my own education on this point, I checked the featured article for today, Diocletian. Aren't featured articles supposed to represent some kind of standard for articles? I notice that there are items listed in the "Secondary references" for that article which are not cited in the article. I don't want to be a fanatic about this, but I found the book that I mentioned to be an interesting survey of information about spiders, in particular about their evolution, and it has an extensive bibliography. I thought that it would be helpful to the person interested in spiders to take a look at this book. It should be no problem to make a citation to the book for some point or other about spiders, but I would feel uncomfortable doing that, just for the purpose of validating its status as a "reference". TomS TDotO (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
The article had a section "Footnotes" for <ref ...>...</ref> before I starting working on it. As TomS TDotO said, the "References" section was a recapitulation of the works previously cited in the article, i.e. duplication of information. I suggest:
I re-title "Footnotes" as "References" for <ref ...>...</ref>
Any who wants add works that are not already cited can create / extend a "Further reading" section - see WP:LAYOUT for the position.
We keep the commented out stuff for about 6 months, which should be enough time to creat / extend a "Further reading" section. --Philcha (talk) 16:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Since fourteen months later this had not been done, I've gone ahead and completed it. Only one reference in the section was used in the text; I deleted it.—DocWatson42 (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
If you like, you can use Coddington (the greatest authority on spiders) to create a stub for Opisthothelae (it's in ref 66 of Spider, so you can get the proper citation from there).
As a layman, I won't try to influence that decision, but I've done some further research as to what the spider-related articles do overall. With abbreviations Myg, Ara and Opi for the candidate suborders, here's the current state of Wikipedia articles:
Article Araneomorphae: Ara suborder (with infraorders of its own); cladogram recognises Opi as a clade, declaring no rank
Pages that link to "Opisthothelae" (that is, to the redirect page itself, shows that only very few, family, superfamily and species articles in Wikipedia link to it.
Wikispecies Araneae and lower level articles sonsistently treat Myg & Ara as infraorders of Opi.
One more point: the Coddington article to which you gave the reference includes Opisthothelae in a cladogram, but doesn't declare a rank. Same with the Tree of Life. Does the professional literature actually require it ranked, or is an easy way forward just to stop declaring a rank for it and refer to it as unranked in the few taxoboxes that mention it?
Meanwhile, I'm undoing the wikilink in Spider#Taxonomy, just to avoid the self-redirect. That way, it can still redirect for other articles. Of course, if this is mistaken, please do revert me. --Stfg (talk) 14:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
There's a quite good article in the Italian Wikipedia, so today I've replaced the redirect with a stub based on a loose translation of that at Opisthothelae, using Coddington and Taxonomicon as references. I think it manages to be neutral about questions of rank. Please would you take a look and, well, do whatever needs doing. Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Arachnology, like entomology, is gradually moving away from the use of Linnean taxonomic ranks. Luckily, the taxobox template supports unranked clades just fine. Nice work on the stub, by the way! Kaldari (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure whether this is the correct place to make this observation and apologise in advance if it is not. There seems to be an enthusiastic gliding from an evolutionary trait to a suggestion of intention in places, eg " they wave the first pair of legs in form [I don't understand that at all, but it is not the point I am hoping to make] to their heads to mimic antennae, which spiders lack, and to conceal the fact that they have eight legs rather than six; they develop large color patches round one pair of eyes to disguise the fact that they generally have eight simple eyes, while ants have two compound eyes; they cover their bodies with reflective hairs to resemble the shiny bodies of ants. In some spider species,..."
They wave their legs - no problem. To conceal the fact? Wouldn't it be better to say something like, "which conceals the fact"?
Similarly, "they develop large colour patches to ...? wouldn't "which" be preferable again here?"
Then, "they cover their bodies .... to resemble" - that really implies intention by the spider, which is surely not the intention of the author, is it? There are other places where I'm happy to have instinct described that way, eg the spider curls up a leaf to make a nest, where there is an action with a purpose; but it doesn't grow reflective hairs deliberately or instinctively, does it? It is just that that feature has been selectively preferred in some spiders because it happens to look shiny.
I hope I don't sound too critical or pedantic as I found this a fascinating article and I appreciate all the hard, dedicated work that has gone into it. Dawright12 (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that strictly non-teleological phrasing is usually longer and clumsier, e.g. "selectively preferred in some spiders because it happens to look shiny". --Philcha (talk) 16:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I accept that and thank you for responding, but verbosity is not necessarily required as in my example above: eg "which conceals" in place of "to conceal"; "they cover their bodies .... to resemble" replaced by "which covers their bodies and resembles". OK, I appreciate your having considered my point and I'll leave it with you now. Dawright12 (talk) 12:33, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Edit request from 174.7.7.68, 8 July 2011
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Spiders are arthropods. Spiders come to people to consume them. A type of spider is a tall black spider. A spider has string legs a stomach and two eyes.
Most of the proposed change is wrong, and the rest is already there. Read Spider - it's a long article because the subject is complex. --Philcha (talk) 08:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
I think that if people were asked which of two humans was larger, a 6'3" 200 lb. basketball player or a 5' 3" 400 lb. sumo wrester, they would go with the sumo wrestler. P0M (talk) 05:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Untitled
Seeking permission to edit the "Benefits to Humans" section, as it does not directly include the use of spiders as a deterrent to species of pest. As this is arguably the most significant benefit these creatures provide to humans, I suggest it should be placed ahead mentions about spiders being a food source in Cambodian culture. It is almost insulting such an evolutionary wonder is denounced from a friend-of-man's agriculture in favor of stating that is tastes good when fried. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.15.201.67 (talk) 00:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Silk genes inserted into mammals
"spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories"
Haha and..? Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt for one second that some idiots have tried this. But idiots try a lot of things. How many people microwaved spiders hoping that if they got bitten by them afterwords they'd turn into Spider Man? Probably about the same amount of people who tried this. Christ, probably some of the SAME people who tried this. Is it even worth mentioning? If anything it goes some way to undermining the integrity of the article. And biologists lol.--62.30.162.142 (talk) 06:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I am at this moment watching a sheet web weaver of some kind (I haven't identified it yet) under 10x magnification (electronic microscope). She has been very busy for the last few hours cleaning herself. (My fault, I accidentally touched her with some petroleum jelly.) I was surprised to notice that her pedipalps consist, at the very end, of a sort of smoothed rectangular solid that functions rather like a thumb and a more claw-like appendage that closes against it like a finger. I've been trying to get good clear photographs of both the structures and of them in operation. She moves them with extreme rapidity. I have not quite got the trick yet of anticipating when the shutter will need to be fired and firing it at just the right instant. (It's easier to learn that trick photographing basketball games.) But for some reason I had always assumed that the female pedipalps were rather like fingers, and that anything done with them would be something like trying to eat a whole chicken with boxing gloves on. Now I see that it's more like eating a drumstick while wearing mittens.
Has anyone seen a discussion of the fine structure of the pedipalps? Maybe it is only spiders in this genus that have this structure. Tomorrow I'll see if my Brachypelma smithi will hold still for a close look under a magnifying glass.P0M (talk) 07:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Not the best photo, but still what you see in the photo is what is there, it's not some kind of artifact.P0M (talk) 08:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Note pedipalp on the upper left part of the photo.
I believe that female orb web spiders (Araneidae) have a single palpal claw on each pedipalp, but some other types of spiders (jumping spiders for example) only have claws at the ends of their legs (generally 2, but sometimes 3). Kaldari (talk) 10:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I just checked Foelix and see no indication of pedipalps being anything other than something like legs but with one less segment. However, I've just checked the movie I made and it's clear that this spider is using a pincer. I'm beginning to think that this spider is a male. I'll have to find Mac software to change MOV to OGG.P0M (talk) 14:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC) Here it is.P0M (talk) 14:43, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The palpal claw is generally only present in adult females, but may be present in immature males. Palpal claws are present in Araneidae, Thomisidae, Linyphiidae, Pisauridae, Sparassidae, and some basal species of Salticidae, as well as in Harvestmen and other chelicerates. Kaldari (talk) 19:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The text currently affirms that spiral or orb web weavers occupy the centers of their webs. However, many such spiders have a shelter that is attached to the web by a "telegraph" line that alerts the spider to the frantic motion of trapped prey. The spider then comes out of hiding to subdue the prey. P0M (talk) 04:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. It was in Summit, New Jersey, about 35 minutes west-southwest of Manhattan. This summer and fall the porches in my town have had these huge spiders which I like since they (hopefully) cut down on the mosquito population.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
It's so strongly back-lighted that it is difficult to be sure, but I think it is like this one:
Hmmmm. I think the spider is still there on the porch unless the hurricane winds blew him away. I'll try to get another photo.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Is this the same guy as your Araneus diadematus? Here are photos of the spider I photographed earlier, hopefully better lighting angles. He survived hurricane winds but he didn't look too frisky.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:25, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Rear view.
Against pillar.
Upside down.
Curled up.
Nice photos. Thanks.
I think I made a pretty lucky guess based on the original photo. Yes. I think you can be sure that your spider's genus is Araneus. Unless there is a look-alike" species that differs from A. diadematus by some feature that is hard to detect, you surely have A. diadematus. (There are other spiders that often get confused, e.g.,
Phidippus workmanilooks almost likePhidippus audax
and I generally have to get out photographs made by professionals to know which one is which. Another clue lies in the behavior, since P. audax really is audacious in comparison with P. workmani, which is pretty shy.
The opening paragraph states "They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms[1] ....". Is this really true - were plants, fungi, bacteria, etc. considered? Perhaps "organisms" should be "animals"?__DrChrissy (talk) 21:01, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Apologies, but I took the above quote from Spider behavior. The relevant sentence in this Spider article reads "They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms.[2]" however the question remains.__DrChrissy (talk) 21:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
References
^Sebastin, P.A. and Peter, K.V. (eds). (2009). Spiders of India. Universities Press/Orient Blackswan. ISBN978-81-7371-641-6
"A herbivorous species, Bagheera kiplingi, was described in 2008,[5] but all other known species are predators, mostly preying on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards"
It's the second time I'm writing about this. I think this paragraph is not based on real survey but only in long stated judgment. I'm seeing just before my very eyes a juvenile spider feeding on an old leak of beer on my wood floor ( no joke ).
I know spiders feed on their own silk and I don't know a single reason they can't do the same on other "organic substances" like fungi or similar, even nectar.
I think I have seen reports from people who have observed spiders of various kinds drinking the nectar of certain flowers. It's a fairly large jump from observing the comsumption of something to believing with reason that the spiders are able to metabolize the sugars found in nectar. It is also a fairly large jump to assume that they hunt nectar or drink nectar in preference to pure rain water. Some mammalian predators eat grass or even the semi-digested contents of herbivorous prey stomachs. That doesn't change them to non-predator status. Moreover, horses (which never willingly eat the flesh of dead rabbits or other small game as far as I know) must occasionally consume an insect or two along with a mouthful of grass.
Web-weaving spiders eat their own silk under certain circumstances. It is a form of recycling. I've never heard of a species of spider that looks for the webs of other spiders to eat.
Maybe somebody has made an experiment wherein they offer spiders a choice of water or nectar. I'll try to find out. P0M (talk) 02:59, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
Spider nav
OK so looking in the article I seethe sentence below
If courtship is successful, the male injects his sperm from the pedipalps into the female's genital opening, known as the epigyne, on the underside of her abdomen
I started off looking through this template - trying to find the equivalent of epigyne for male spiders
It seems to me having done a quick read/search that the sentence above could say the following but I'm not 100% on that so I thought I'd leave the idea here for someone in the know to confirm/deny and then make the change/not.
If courtship is successful, the male injects his sperm from the mating plug in the tarsus (final section of the pedipalps) into the female's genital opening, known as the epigyne, on the underside of her abdomen
[J]umping spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length by suddenly increasing the blood pressure in the third or fourth pair of legs. Unlike smaller jumping spiders, though larger spiders use hydraulics to straighten their legs, they depend on their flexor muscles to generate the propulsive force for their jumps.
Which is it? Flexor muscles or hydraulics? I'd be tempted to do away with the whole reference to jumping spiders; it seems quite specific for a brief section on the locomotion of all spiders. 81.96.200.247 (talk) 15:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
@Kaldari: Replacement of at least two photographic images with one stylised ventral diagram on the grounds of unreadable labels is curious, given that anyone interested enough in the diagram might be expected to click on the image and see it enlarged, especially as the labels in the diagram are no more readable anyway, negating the point of the replacement! If you really cannot read the labels in their current form, let me know what aspects bother you; the colour? the size? I'll delay any re-labelling till I hear from you. I don't mind a bit of editing to suit your personal tastes within reason, but I take the question of information content rather seriously, and although stylised diagrams have their place, neither this one, nor the one that the photographs replaced was a reasonable representation of the bauplan. JonRichfield (talk) 15:23, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation Jon. I have 2 problems with the current diagrams:
The labels are unreadable. On the 1st image I can read 3 of the 15 labels. On the 2nd image I can read zero. On the 3rd image, I can read about half. On the diagram that I substituted, I can read all of the labels at thumbnail resolution. The manual of style suggests that diagrams should be large enough to be readable (which suggests that the labels in these images need to be larger). Some of the labels are even hard to read on the file pages.
They are redundant. Apart from a small handful of labels, they show the exact same information. Having 3 images showing the same information is unnecessary and wasteful of valuable space (especially on mobile devices).
@Kaldari: OK thanks, at least that is something to work on.
I now have done a bit of field surgery as a stopgap. When you can spare the time, please check them out again. I don't suppose they will yet be acceptable, but please let me know whether there is any degree of improvement.
Three? Are you counting the "Formation of head" diagram? Not mine, so I left it alone. Personally I think it doesn't belong there, so much as in the Arthropoda article. I am contemplating fairly drasti... er, bold attention to the Spider lede anyway within a few days (disorganised, over-large for a lede, and material in the wrong places), and I could deal with that at the same time. It is a valuable diagram of course, but also in the wrong place. That leaves us with two plus the diagram of the sagittal section; was that the third one you had in mind? I did in the past remove a very attractive image of a jumping spider that illustrated the chelicerae, but both redundantly and unclearly.
The redundancy in labelling that you mention was partly deliberate, because each image used part of the same information, and has parts that are aspect-dependent, and I did not wish to be too precious in decisions of what one could in principle omit. It did not seem to me that that particular redundancy would be relevant to tablets etc. Some of my following remarks could alleviate that if you find the redundancy unacceptable.
I did realise that some of the labels are unreadable in the thumbnail version, but I don't accept that that is a show-stopper, especially if the less readable material is not of primary interest to many of the readers in the context of the article section. It is the larger or even the full views that must show everything readably, just as one accepts that not all the picture details cannot be clearly visible (or visible at all) in a thumbnail. I kept them in the picture partly because those same pictures get used elsewhere in places where some of the redundant labels are in fact required.
However, there are alternatives of course. I could for example, produce copies with less generous labeling for different articles. Or I could produce versions annotated with only abbreviations or even just with sequence numbers or letters, and with a text legend beneath the pictures. Such annotation was practically universal in the old books, and even in many modern books. Such index annotations of course could use much larger text than the font for full annotations. I can produce some versions that I would be glad if you could criticise, but I might be a day or two about it, because I am slightly overwhelmed with unexpected commitments. It might be as late as Tuesday before I can surface, but I'll see what I can manage. But I'll look in anyway in case you respond before then.
I don't think the solution is removing redundant labels, the solution is just to have fewer diagrams. For example, what does the Palystes castaneus diagram add to the article that isn't already covered by the other two diagrams? I like your idea of using numbered labels. That would also make the images usable on other language wikis. Kaldari (talk) 19:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
@Kaldari: Ah was THAT the third one? OK, I had put it there for the leg details and forgotten about it. I think it is a better picture than the other one, so I'll place it under bauplan and remove the other one. I'll also annotate it by abbreviations with a legend in the captions. I had in fact thought about the value of doing so for the benefit of its possible use in other languages, as you mention, but it seems I forgot to mention it above. Sorry! I'll be back anon. JonRichfield (talk) 09:00, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
That's a nice improvement. I still think it's a bit excessive to have so many anatomy diagrams in an overview article. I think it would make more sense to have the full set in the spider anatomy article, and just a couple here, like one external diagram and one internal diagram. Kaldari (talk) 17:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
@Kaldari: OooKAAYYyyy.... we seem to be on a winning tack. I have done the same for the illustration of the ventral aspect (actually as I type, I am still busy on it, but it being the weekend and all that...)
Now, as for the too-much-anatomy bit. In principle I disagree, but in practice you have a very good point. The fundamental problem is not too much anatomy, but too much article. As you may see in the next section of this talk page, I have been whining about that myself. I reckon that the right thing is to start by restructuring this article anyway; it may have been good once, but by now it is sloppy and disorganised. There are items out of place, the lede is a mess etc... What I would like to do, but would not like to get busy on before there is some encouragement, such as from you (however unofficial, it is just that there is a distinction between being bold and being arrogant in reorganising a major article) would be to reorganise the article in situ. Once there is some agreement that the result is beginning to look good, I could split it so that the anatomy goes into the anatomy article, with only introductory remarks and links in the main article, the spiders-and-humans into another, etc. Some of the relevant articles already exist, as you point out (eg anatomy), and when they do, they will be used and linked as suitable.
This article is so long that its TOC is more than a page long on my desktop screen. It leaves a nasty wide space. Any objection to my "floating" it? And I am not in a hurry, but I think it should be split with appropriate links. For just one example, "Spiders and people" could well go into its own article. Any reactions anyone? JonRichfield (talk) 09:00, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
@JonRichfield: there don't seem to be many – indeed possibly any – spider editors around at present, which is doubtless why you didn't get a reply. I agree both that the article is too long and that it's not as good as the "GA" rating suggests: some parts are disorganized; others muddled; others need updating.
(As just one example of a muddle, consider this sentence from Web types: "Now, however, it appears that non-orb spiders are a sub-group that evolved from orb-web spiders". So Mesothelae, Mygalomorphae and Haplogynae, all of which don't make orb webs, evolved from a subgroup of Entelegynae, some of which do? The "Web types" section seems to assume that orb webs are basically the norm, and that others are deviations, whereas orb webs are a later development among one group.)
The problem with all these long, top-level articles which have sections supposedly summarizing separate "main" articles is that unless there are enough active editors article quality slowly decays and inconsistencies grow. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:20, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: Gosh! I had forgotten all about this. Much sorry! Anno domini is my excuse. I suspect that if I were to climb in, though I am no arachnologist, I could do some good. I might ping you occasionally though. If you hear nothing in the next week or so, shout at me. Cheers, JonRichfield (talk) 16:51, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Image of legs
I got reverted when removing a image that was in the article twice. I don't see how the second time improves the article. There is another image under the same section and there must be a lot of other better images of spider legs on commons if a second image is desired. --Averater (talk) 15:20, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The image is in the section Spider#Locomotion. It begins "Each of the eight legs of a spider consists of seven distinct parts" and then goes on to describe each of those parts. An image of a spider leg at that point showing the parts is very useful to readers; they shouldn't have to scroll back and forwards between the text and the earlier image. By all means replace the repeated image by a better one, but don't remove it before it's replaced. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:27, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
There was no need for two images at that small section. Otherwise maybe a gallery should be considered. But now I changed for another image that only shows the leg. If a photo is desired meybe this could be better. --Averater (talk) 15:39, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Justification: improper formatting (there should be a space between the two brackets) and Bangladesh is in Southeast Asia, meaning that inclusion is pointless and redundant per WP:UNDUE.
Actually, Bangladesh is not in Southeast Asia, as this is often understood, but in South Asia. However, the World Spider Catalog does not list Bangladesh for any of the genera in the family, so I have removed this addition pending a source. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Spiders Eat 400-800 Million Tons of Prey Every Year
Compare that with the fact mankind eats 400 million tons of meat and fish. :) Awesome!
Shouldn't the title of this article be Araneae? I've noticed Wikipedia is super inconsistent with regards to using scientific names and colloquial names for organisms, but it would be more correct to use the scientific name, rather than the colloquial name, as the title. There are plenty of other arthropod articles suffering from the same issue.Maharama (talk) 10:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Well, the issue is WP:COMMONNAME: the English "Wikipedia generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)". Since "spider" is much more commonly used than "Araneae", then that's what this policy produces. When species are obscure and not known to the public, then the scientific name will be the most common – indeed the only – name, so the article ends up at the scientific name. Inconsistent? Yes. Do I like it? No. But it's policy, and we're stuck with it. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:11, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Oh, I see; would it be possible to make an argument that "spider" is ambiguous, since some animals outside of Araneae, like sea spiders, also use that name? Anyways, thanks for the response.Maharama (talk) 03:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC) Maharama (talk) 03:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Sea spiders aren't even mentioned on the page Spider (disambiguation), because the word spider, without qualification, never means a sea spider. Article Hemiptera falls the other way, essentially because most people are slightly puzzled when an entomologist tells them that "a beetle's not a bug." William Avery (talk) 13:02, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Pedipalps carry a large number of such setae sensitive to contact chemicals and air-borne smells, such as female pheromones.[ref]
The problem is that the reference (discovery.com) has been taken over by a scammer (rebelmouse.com). An archived version of the discovery.com page is here.
The best fix would be to replace the broken reference with something which works. I had a look at doing that but the one reliable source I found that wasn't a copy of this article had a much weaker statement. Would someone familiar with the topic please fix. Johnuniq (talk) 23:56, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
Done Actually the information wasn't quite right. Various sources I've read, including Foelix (2011) which I used, say that chemosensitive hairs are mostly found on the first pair of legs, not the pedipalps. Males do have pheromone sensitive hairs on their pedipalps. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:53, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 24 May 2018
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Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. The article already says "coxa" in multiple places, and I can't find "cosa". Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:42, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Statement about silk glands in tarantula feet is outdated
Our "Symptoms of spider bite" graphic combines the symptoms of two spider species which have completely different types of vemon (black widow which is neurotoxic, and brown recluse which is hemotoxic), while ignoring all the other species of spiders. It also incorrectly lists symptoms which the source specifically says are NOT symptoms of spider bite, such as exudates (which indicate a bacterial infection). It also throws in the symptoms of anaphylaxis for good measure. So even though 99% of spider bites have no adverse symptoms whatsoever, the average reader skimming through our article will be lead to the conclusion that all spider bites are extremely dangerous. The only way we can make a spider bite symptom graphic that isn't misleading is to make separate ones for specific types of spiders, for example "Symptoms of brown recluse bite". Otherwise, we are just muddying the water and contributing to the confusion of the public. Kaldari (talk) 01:45, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Contradictions in anatomical images
The leg segments in the numbered images in the "Body Plan" section do not match the descriptions of the same segments on the numbered image of the leg in the "Locomotion" section. I assume the second one is the correct one, but either way, one of them need correcting. So which is it? They are currently as follows:
1st segment (6 & 1) = Coxa
2nd segment (7 & 2) = Trochanter
3rd segment (8 & 3) = Patella on 1st image, Femur on 2nd image
4th segment (9 & 4) = Tibia on 1st image, Patella on 2nd image
5th segment (10 & 5) = Metatarsus on 1st image, Tibia on 2nd image
6th segment (11 & 6) = Tarsus on 1st image, Metatarsus on 2nd image
7th segment (12 & 7) = [unlabelled] on 1st image, Tarsus on 2nd image
In the last paragraph, "the Robinson's family home" should be "the Robinsons' family home" (belonging to more than one Robinson) and "the Robinson's" should be "the Robinsons". 2.24.116.144 (talk) 03:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
^Zhou, J., Lai, J., Menda, G., Stafstrom, J.A., Miles, C.I., Hoy, R.R. and Miles, R.N., 2022. Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(14), p.e2122789119.
I thought fixing the family number for consistency would simple, but then I started trying to fix some of the other genera and species numbers and noticed some discrepancies between WSC and Wikipedia. Here are some comments and questions.
The table in Araneomorphae includes Leptonetidae, whereas it should be in Mesothelae . The taxobox of the Leptonetidae article has it in infraorder Araneomorphae My mistake (confused Liphistiidae and Leptonetidae)
I know the spider articles follow WSC for genera and species, but perhaps the high taxonomy has a different source. — Jts1882 | talk08:38, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Just wanted to mention that the suborder Mesothelae contains only one extant family, the Liphistiidae, so Leptonetidae can't be in it (unless there was recently a huge taxonomic change which I wasn't aware of?).
Also wanted to mention that, since Liphistiidae is in a sister suborder to all other extant spiders, it doesn't belong to either the Mygalomorph or the Araneomorph infraorders.
This isn't a comment on the rest of your suggestion, although personally I think that the wsc is still a useful source for the higher taxonomy of spiders. I just wanted to clear some things up. ThatSpiderByte (talk) 09:00, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
For the split of Liphistiidae and raised Heptathelidae, WSC is following a paper which gives its doi as 10.3969/j.issn.1005-9628.2022.01.013, which doesn't work. I can't find the paper online, but it can be downloaded from the WSC bibliography: Li, S. Q. (2022) "On the taxonomy of spiders of the suborder Mesothelae", Acta Arachnologica Sinica31(1): 71-72. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:13, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. Looks like a major revision of Gnaphosidae, with Prodidomidae restored as a family. Incidentally, I mistakenly mixed up Leptonetidae and Liphistiidae in the first version of my list. — Jts1882 | talk10:02, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 31 August 2022
This edit request to Spider has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods of the order Araneae, which have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms, with more than 50,000 species recorded in 132 families. Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax or prosoma, and the opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae. Spiders are found on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every land habitat type. This adult male jumping spider (Plexippus paykulli) was photographed in the US state of Florida.
There are too many images in the lead. I think it would be better if there were just three images representing the major modern groups; Mesothelae, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae. LittleJerry (talk) 00:09, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
Done, checking ref to verify --King Öomie 15:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryan Vesey (talk • contribs) 22:07, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Rear view.
Against pillar.
Upside down.
Curled up.
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. —KuyaBriBriTalk 13:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Not done - that US case has low relevance to the article and none to 'culture', so the paragraph was deleted per WP:UNDUE. Zefr (talk) 04:33, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
Done. Zefr (talk) 01:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
