Red-legged purseweb spider
The red-legged purseweb spider is a sturdy black spider. The males have bright red legs, as if they were wearing red stockings. It lives in a silk tube against a tree trunk and grabs bugs right through the wall of its tube.

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Fun facts
Females can live up to 7 years, which is very long for a spider.
Only the males leave home, to go looking for a female. That is when you are most likely to see one.
The babies stay in their mother's web for up to a year before moving out.
Most asked questions about Red-legged purseweb spider
?Why do some have red legs?
Only the males have bright red legs. The females are dark all over.
?How big is the red-legged purseweb spider?
Females are about 2,5 centimetres long, males about 1,5 centimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Sphodros rufipes
- Named by
- Latreille, 1829
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Atypidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Atypidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Sphodros rufipes (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 unknown author. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
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