Silver Orb-Weaver Spider

The Silver Orb-Weaver Spider. The Silver Orb-Weaver Spider very easy to recognize thanks to its silvery body, yellow or green and black marks. These spiders have a long body and long legs. They are also sometimes called Orb Weaving Spiders due to their rounded shoulder humps on their abdomen. These spiders are in the Aranedae family .

The Silver Orb-Weaver spider is found throughout Australia; more often under vegetation in habitations that are moist such as forests, woodlands, swamplands and stream sides. The Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders normally build their little webs horizontally over water, on the grass or among shrubs.

The Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders stays in its web all day where it captures its prey which includes flies and small insects.

Silver orb weaver spiders are not very fast at biting human beings: they have very tiny fangs and they always calculate their bites. However, in case of a Silver Orb-Weaver Spider bite it cause very little pain, swelling and numbness. In a few cases nausea and dizziness have been reported.

There are so many silver orb weaver spiders that build new webs on a daily basis. Since these spiders tend to be active during the evening hours; the Silver Orb-Weaver Spider consume their webs during this time, rest for about an hour and then build another web within the same location. As such the Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders do not have detritus accumulation as may be the case with most other spider webs. Surprisingly some of these spiders do not build webs at all.

The silver orb weavers are blessed with eight eyes that are similar to one another; they lack stridulating organs and they are hairy on the legs and spine. They belong to the third largest family of spiders.

Mesozyqiella dunlopi that is found in the Lower Cretaceous is known to be the oldest true orb weaving spider. The Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders among a few others are believed to have been in existence for more than 140 million years. The Araneidae, Tetragnathidae and the Uloboridae (the three largest spider families) are believed to come from the same origin.

Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders have oversize brains.
In the Silver Orb-Weaver 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

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

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

A Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders stomach can only take liquids, so a Silver Orb-Weaver 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 Silver Orb-Weaver 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 Silver Orb-Weaver Spider’s reproductive opening.

Silver Orb-Weaver 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 spiders need to shed their exoskeleton. The Silver Orb-Weaver 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.
Female Silver Orb-Weaver Spiders lay eggs on a bed of silk, which she creates right after mating. Once the female Silver Orb-Weaver Spider lays her eggs, she will than cover them with more silk.