African social spider
Most spiders live alone, but the African social spider lives in big families. Tens or even hundreds of spiders share one giant, messy nest in a thorny bush. They build together, hunt together and look after the babies together.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Most of the spiders in a family are females, and many of them never have babies of their own. They act as nannies for the others.
The nest is made of silk woven around twigs, with tunnels inside where the spiders live.
Nests are built low in spiny bushes or trees, about half a metre to one and a half metres off the ground.
Inside a nest in the hot savanna, it can get hotter than 40 degrees.
The aunties feed the babies a special liquid food from their own mouths.
Most asked questions about African social spider
?Do African social spiders live together?
Yes. Tens to hundreds of related spiders share one big nest and work together.
?What do African social spiders eat?
Insects that get caught in the web, which they share with the whole family.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Stegodyphus dumicola
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Eresidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Eresidae
- Lives on
- Africa
Where the facts come from
- Stegodyphus dumicola (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 Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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