Feather-Legged Spider

Facts about Feather-Legged spiders, "Scientific name for Feather-Legged spiders is Uloborus plumipes". Feather-Legged spiders are part of the Uloboridae family. They do not build webs. Instead, the Feather-Legged spider will weave a single strand that they lay across grass or dangle in the air to catch prey.
Female Feather-Legged spider are about 10 to 12 millimeters in length. Male Feather-Legged spiders are a third smaller at about 6 to 8 millimeters in length. In both genders, the first set of legs are much longer than the others. The front legs are typically longer than the rest of the body. The front legs of Feather-Legged spider are used for catching prey. The Feather-Legged spider often sits with all the other legs compressed against the body with the two large legs resting in the air, ready to act as pincers as it reels in any prey caught on the single thread they have, like a fisherman reeling in his line. The Feather-Legged spider don’t have claws or scopulas on their large legs but brush like features. The Feather-Legged spider spiders also have a single row of fully developed eyes (four of them), with a very small second row of eyes that are so small it appears they only have four eyes. The Feather-Legged spider tend to resemble long brown or green twigs unless moving.
Feather-Legged spiders are similar to the M. bradleyi species and M. caudatus; all three species have a cigar-shaped plate called a cribellum. However, Feather-Legged spiders lay a long brown cylindrical egg sack. Feather-Legged spiders do not have a venom gland. Nor are they dangerous to be more than an annoyance to humans.
Feather-Legged spiders live in bushes at the edge of a jungle or small trees. Feather-Legged spiders are native to Asia and Australia. Australian species like Miagrammopes flavus are frequently green, while others native to Asia tend to be brown. All Feather-Legged spiders sport coloring to blend into the bushes and plants on which they live, often so well camoflauged that they are not noticed until they move.

The muscles in a Feather-Legged spiders legs pull them inward, but the Feather-Legged spider can't extend its legs outward. It will pump a watery liquid into its legs that pushes them out. A Feather-Legged spider’s legs and body are covered with lots of hair and these hairs are water-repellent, which trap a thin layer of air around the body so the Feather-Legged spiders body doesn't get wet. It allows them to float, this is how some spiders can survive under water for hours. A Feather-Legged spider feels its prey with chemo sensitive hairs on its legs and than feels if the prey is edible. The leg hair picks up smells and vibrations from the air. There are at minimum, two small claws that are at the end of the legs. Each Feather-Legged spiders leg has six joints, giving the spider 48 leg joints. The Feather-Legged spider’s body has oil on it, so the spider doesn't stick to it’s own web.

A Feather-Legged spiders stomach can only take liquids, so a spider needs to liquefy their food before they eat. They bite on their prey and empty its stomach liquids into the pray which turns it into a soup for them to drink.

A male Feather-Legged spider has two appendages called "pedipalps" a sensory organ, instead of a penis, which is filled with sperm and insert by the male into the female spider’s reproductive opening.

Feather-Legged spiders do not have a skeletons. They have a hard outer shell called an exoskeleton-(a rigid external covering for the body in some invertebrate animals). The exoskeleton is hard, so it can’t grow with the Feather-Legged spider. The young Feather-Legged spiders need to shed their exoskeleton. The spider has to climb out of the old shell through the cephalothorax. Once out, they must spread themselves out before the new exoskeleton will harden. Know they have some room to grow. They stop growing once they fill this shell. Females are usually bigger than males.

Spiders belong to a group of animals called "arachnids", mites and Scorpions and a tick is also in the arachnid family. An Arachnids is a creature with eight legs, two body parts, no antennae or wings and are not able to chew on food. Feather-Legged spiders are not insects because insects have three main body parts and six legs and most insects have wings.

The Arachnids are even in a larger group of animals called "arthropods" an invertebrate animal of the large phylum Arthropoda, which also include spiders, crustaceans and insects. They are the largest group in the animal world, about 80% of all animals come from this group. There are over a million different species. There are more than 40,000 different types of spiders in the world.

Feather-Legged spiders have oversize brains.
In the Feather-Legged spider the oxygen is bound to "hemocyanin" a copper-based protein that turns their blood blue, a molecule that contains copper rather than iron. Iron-based hemoglobin in red blood cells turns the blood red

Feather-Legged spiders have two body parts, the front part of the body is called the Cephalothorax-(the thorax and fused head of spiders). Also on this part of the body is the spider’s gland that makes the poison and the stomach, fangs, mouth, legs, eyes and brain. Feather-Legged spiders also have these tiny little leg-type things called (pedipalps) that are next to the fangs. They are used to hold food while the Feather-Legged spider bites it. The next part of the body is the abdomen and the abdomens back end is where there is the spinnerets and where the silk producing glands are located.