Saint Andrew's Cross Spider

Facts about Saint Andrew's Cross Spider, "Scientific name for Saint Andrew's Cross Spider is Scytodes thoracica". Saint Andrew's Cross Spider is a breed of spiders that is largely found all over Australia, particularly in the eastern part of Australia, ranging from the margins of the rainforest to the open forest and New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders are non-aggressive breeds and their bite is low risk to human beings. The Saint Andrews Cross Spider breed is a web-weaver that are generally found in summer in backyard areas around the house. Saint Andrew's Cross Spider is considered advantageous as it spins a huge web to trap flying insects, such as mosquitoes and flies. The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breed attained the name due to their brilliant, cross-shaped trap decorations. 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. 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.

Appearance of Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders

The fully grown up Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breed appears with the body length that ranges from 5 mm to 15 mm. The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breeds have a yellow and brown colored abdomen with stripes. Usually, the Saint Andrew's Cross Spiderbreeds sit, upside down, in the center of its web shaping a cross.

Features of Saint Andrew's Cross Spider

The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breed has zigzag bands of bluish-white colored silk that form a complete or incomplete cross through the middle of the orb web. Female Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders boast a silvery carapace and a yellow, silver, black and red banded upper stomach among two longitudinal yellow lines below. The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breed sits by means of the legs in pairs. The male Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breeds have a cream and brown colored body, and they are usually smaller than the females. The young Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders have a cream-colored body and they make a round stabilimentum similar to a white colored silk doily that masks them well and may as well function as an umbrella. As the young spider matures, the doily is slowly changed into a cross.

Diet of Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders

The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breed feeds on moths, flies, butterflies, bees and bugs. The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breeds are generally protected by silk covering into an efficient package earlier than being bitten, even though the smaller prey may be bitten initially.

The average lifespan of the Saint Andrew's Cross Spider breed is one year.

The muscles in a Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders legs pull them inward, but the Saint Andrew's Cross Spider can't extend its legs outward. It will pump a watery liquid into its legs that pushes them out. A Saint Andrew's Cross 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 Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders body doesn't get wet. It allows them to float, this is how some spiders can survive under water for hours. A Saint Andrew's Cross 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 Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders leg has six joints, giving the spider 48 leg joints. The Saint Andrew's Cross Spider’s body has oil on it, so the spider doesn't stick to it’s own web.

A Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders stomach can only take liquids, so a Saint Andrew's Cross 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 Saint Andrew's Cross 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 Saint Andrew's Cross Spider’s reproductive opening.

Saint Andrew's Cross 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 spider. The young Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders need to shed their exoskeleton. The Saint Andrew's Cross 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. Female spiders are usually bigger than males.

Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders have oversize brains.
In the Saint Andrew's Cross 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

Saint Andrew's Cross 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 Saint Andrew's Cross Spider’s gland that makes the poison and the stomach, fangs, mouth, legs, eyes and brain. Saint Andrew's Cross 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 spider bites it. The next part of the Saint Andrew's Cross Spiders body is the abdomen and the abdomens back end is where there is the spinnerets and where the silk producing glands are located.