How many legs does a spider have? How many legs does a spider have or the most interesting facts about creatures living in the web

Spiders are represented by 40 thousand species. They eat more small predators than themselves, as well as various insects. Arachnids are distinguished by the structure of their body, which consists of both a cephalothorax and an undivided abdomen, connected by a thin stalk. The limbs are located directly on the cephalothorax. How many legs a spider has is easy to find out by counting them on at least one specimen. The number of legs is 8 pieces - unchanged for any type of spider. It does not depend on the size of the individual and the habitat.

They not only allow rapid movement, but also act as “hands” with which cocoons are held and carried. Small processes can be found on the abdomen of spiders. Interestingly, not all limbs are legs of a spider. In front are the tentacles, with the help of which it orients itself around itself. Before moving, the spider probes the path and receives a signal about what is located nearby, as well as where it needs to move.

As soon as the prey is caught, it will fall into the spider’s mouth with the help of its jaws. The tentacles are especially noticeable in representatives of large sizes. The jaws are located in front of the mouth. These are chelicerae that play a significant role in defense against attacks.

With their help, the spider is able to pierce through an enemy (victim) or dig a hole in the ground. Through such limbs, poison is injected into the victim. During the mating period, the claws are used by males to fertilize spider females.

The legs of a spider are an amazing organ of smell and at the same time a means of transportation. Eight – that’s how many legs spiders have! But if you count the joints, it turns out that there are 48 of them. This is due to the fact that each leg has 6 joints. The legs help determine whether specimens stuck to the web are edible. Thin legs pick up vibrations from the victim dying in the web. If the spider needs to catch up with an insect, then it develops quite a high speed and quickly overtakes its prey. Some spiders make jumps that are approximately 50 times the size of their own body. You can see spiders that, for various reasons, are missing one or two legs.

It turns out that when asked how many legs a spider has in a normal environment, the answer may be 6-7 pieces.

This is due to the fact that individuals often lose limbs. In order to exist normally, hunt or run, a spider needs three pairs of legs - a fourth pair exists in case of the loss of one of them. The length of the legs can reach 15 cm, and their span can be up to 28 cm.

They perform important functions for arachnids, such as:

1. Orientation in space.
2. Fast movement.
3. Hunting for prey.
4. Odor recognition.
5. Weaving a web.
6. Digging and deepening the ground for burrows.

Arachnids detect odors through hairs located on their legs.

Interestingly, spiders pick up the vibrations generated by playing the violin, like the trembling of prey during a hunt. Using violin music, the spider can be easily lured out of its hole.

Almost every spider species is busy weaving webs. It can be in the form of a warm cocoon, a trapping net.

When observing arachnids, it is noticeable that the following types of webs are more common:

• Strong - it has especially strong threads that can withstand the weight of a bird and even a person.
• Round is a network with a vertical arrangement. Almost the entire surface is covered with an unpleasant sticky substance.
• Hammock - has a horizontal base to which vertical threads are attached. Having become entangled in them during the flight, the insects end up directly on the hammock, where a meeting with the hunter awaits them.

Spider webs vary in density, size and stickiness. Regardless of this, it performs an important function - it catches prey in a reliable trap. Once the victim is in the dense spider net, he will be shrouded in a cocoon. Then the spider uses its saliva, poison, and sucks out (like a pump) the resulting pulp.

How many legs do arachnids have? It is important for them to have three pairs of legs and a fourth as a spare. This allows you to easily move along your own web and not stick to it. There are spider species that do not weave webs. The special structure of the body and a large number of paws help them balance successfully.

Remember - absolutely any spider has 8 legs (aka legs, legs). It would seem that you should catch a spider and see how many legs it has. But not everything is so simple, because if you ask an enlightened person how many legs and how many limbs a spider has, the answer will be 8 and 12, respectively! The latter include 4 pairs of legs, 1 pair of tentacles and 1 pair of chelicerae.

Arachnid limbs

In fact, many people, when asking the question of how many limbs a spider has, mean only its legs. But the limbs include not only the legs, but also other parts of the body. This representative of the fauna has a feature that people often do not notice. It's all about the forelimbs, called tentacles. Yes, they look like paws, but they have a different function, or rather two:

Leg tentacles are clearly visible in large species. These include: the tarantula theraphosa blond, the South Russian tarantula, nephila and others. In large arachnids, you can also notice chelicerae - strong protruding jaws located in front of the mouth. This part of the body is also a limb. Chelicerae allow them to defend themselves from opponents, pierce through the victim, and in some cases dig and tear holes in the ground.

Chelicerae are also needed to inject venom (for those who have it) into the victim, as if a scorpion were using its sting. The claws also have another name - pedipalps. Males use them to fertilize females.

Why does it have 8 legs and not 6 like insects?

In order not to get confused in terms and concepts, you should clarify something. Spider is a separate class of the animal world and belongs to the arachnids. In other words, it is not an insect! In terms of body structure, it is closer to such creatures as scorpions.

All insects have 3 pairs of legs (6 legs in total). Various centipedes and other animals are not insects, they have their own class, like spiders. In insects, the legs are on the thoracic section, in spiders on the cephalothorax. In addition to small external differences from insects, arachnids have a fundamentally different internal structure of the body.

Even though spiders are a separate species, the question remains open - why does a spider need 8 legs and not 6? There is no direct answer, but reasonable conclusions can be drawn. Let's start our discussion from afar, with an explanation of the nature of the web.

Almost all spiders (about 40,000 species) can weave webs. It happens different shapes, density and size. But in all cases, its main property is to catch prey like a trap. After the prey is caught, the spider completes its work by wrapping the victim in a cocoon. After this, the spider just needs to use its venom and saliva to cook the victim, and then suck out the resulting mess. Absorption occurs using a special stomach that works on the principle of a pump.

So, in order to move comfortably along their own threads, arachnids need 4 pairs of legs. But what about those spiders who don’t know how to make webs? In arachnids special structure They need their bodies and “extra” legs for even better body balancing. Another function of the legs is smell. With the help of hairs, spiders recognize the prey for edibility.

In addition, spiders are offended by other predators, or “everyday” incidents happen to them, as a result of which the spiders lose their precious legs. Roughly speaking, they initially have “extra” legs, but with 4 legs the spiders will be completely uncomfortable.

As you can see, the spider is one of the most amazing creatures on the planet thanks to its natural properties. It’s good that they don’t have enough brains to seize power on Earth.

Everyone treats spiders differently. But more often than not, these predatory and often aggressive creatures evoke in a person only fear or, perhaps, some kind of disgust; someone will look at them with curiosity and interest, and someone will want to move away from that place as quickly as possible. where the meeting with the spider took place.

But those who really thoroughly study these creatures, their lives are arachnophiles, who are precisely love and admire these creatures, studying them, conducting all the necessary research. They are also engaged in their breeding and careful study of their structure and life activity.

And yet these strange and, at times, incredibly scary creatures, which have existed since ancient times, are of interest not only to scientists, but also often ordinary people, looking at them with curiosity. But most often a question arises that worries all people, regardless of age (children and adults), about how many legs a spider has. And there is a lot of controversy surrounding this.

Studying arachnology

In order to receive exact answer to the question You can use one of two methods to determine how many legs a spider has:

Of course, the second method is the fastest, since all you need to do is catch the spider and simply count the number of legs it has. But you can make a mistake!

Unfortunately, not all people know that a spider has more than just legs, but also powerful mandibles, which are usually characteristic of predators. Very often they are also counted, like paws. It is known that the spider uses these mandibles to capture and then hold its prey. They are located on the head. But the legs of spider representatives are located on the middle segment of the body, which is also called the cephalothorax.

As for the abdomen itself, it is completely free and there are no limbs on it, except for the gill legs and then atrophied. But these legs changed so much over time that they turned into ordinary spider warts.

If you go looking for information that is always available, you should start with toxicology. It is known that sometimes spiders are classified as insects, but this is not true! If they are mistaken for insects, then they should only have 3 pairs of legs. But it is known that these creatures belong to a class separate from insects, which in their characteristics are much closer to scorpions.

If we exclude all errors and misconceptions in this matter, then we can easily find the answer to the most important question about how many legs a spider has. It is known that they, regardless of species, have exactly 4 pairs of legs.

The structure of arachnoid legs and their function

So, the spider has 8 legs or 4 pairs of paws. Each of its legs consists of 7 segments:

The paws of any representative of the arachnid are very sensitive. On them there are a huge number of hairs - receptors. It is the legs that help determine when the victim is approaching or is in danger from any enemy. It is the paws that help representatives of arachnids recognize odors and navigate well in space. And the main function of the paws is to move, dig holes and shelters, weave webs, defend against enemies, and attack their victims.

Experiments on spiders

At all an experiment was recently carried out in France, during which scientists tried to figure out what would happen to a spider if it suddenly lost one or two of its legs. It turned out that they did not even notice their loss.

The experiment was carried out as follows: several arachnid representatives were planted in a small container, in which all the paws are in place. Another container contained spiders that, for various reasons, had lost one or two of their legs. They were watched for some time. Scientists found out that spiders in both containers performed web weaving, food acquisition, and other vital procedures in the same way.

But the results of this study can be easily explained: nature itself took care of the spiders and gave them the back pair of legs as a reserve in case the front legs were suddenly lost. By the way, there are a lot of such individuals. But unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find a spider web with 4 or 5 legs. Usually such a loss can threaten him with the loss of his life.

Spider leg length

The length of the legs of arachnid representatives depends on its species. This is usually the result of how a species has adapted to survive under certain conditions of its existence. If we were to create a pedestal of record holders in terms of leg length, the first six positions would be occupied by the following species of arachnid representatives:

Very often in life a person can meet a spider with long paws And gray color body, which moves quite quickly. Of course, Each person reacts to them differently: some people simply don’t notice them, but others get very scared. But not everyone knows that this arthropod is not a spider at all, although it is very similar in appearance to one. People called him “false spiders.” In science they are also called “haymakers.” It is very easy to distinguish them if you know the basic distinctive features: the abdomen of this “spider” is dissected, it almost completely merges with the cephalothorax. But spiders have a completely solid abdomen and it is connected to the head by a thin membrane.

Knowing how many legs a spider has will help you remember how many eyes it has. It is known that representatives of arachnids also have 4 pairs of eyes. Scientific books usually use a description of arachnids, indicating their overall body length, but they usually do not mention the length of their legs. Therefore, this interesting data can only be found if you study some spider species in more detail, or specifically search for it.

It's worth remembering that not all spiders are always that had the same body size, and even color, may have legs of the same size. Very often you can find in the wild that the same appearance Spiders' leg lengths vary.

Six or eight

We won’t bore you with a long wait and will immediately answer the question of how many legs a spider has. Eight! Yes, not six, like insects, but eight. Therefore, spiders are not insects. For these eight-legged creatures, a special class has been allocated - arachnids. In addition to spiders, this also includes eight-legged ticks. But that's another story, and we'll get back to spiders.

Brief introduction

The structure of the spider is such that the very first pair of its legs are the so-called tentacles. They are similar to walking feet, but are not used for that purpose. They have other functions:

• firstly, they help the spider to feel the road, carefully probing it;
• secondly, with the help of them he brings food to his mouth.

The strong jaws (chelicerae) located in front of its mouth help the spider in several cases:

• firstly, it is protection from enemies;
• secondly, with them he pierces his victim through and through;
• thirdly, chelicerae help it break holes in the ground.

The internal structure of the spider, unlike many insects, has a very complex structure. Its body contains arachnoid, salivary and poisonous (in some species of spiders) glands. The latter are responsible for the production of the poison necessary for the spider to hunt and self-defense.

The poison is injected through the chelicerae into the victim, immediately killing it. Then he injects a drop of saliva into it, which can turn the insect's insides into mush. When the “dinner” is ready, the spider literally sucks out all the juices from the victim using a special sucking stomach that acts like a pump.

Why does he need eight legs?

For Everyday life Spiders, in principle, only need six legs. The fourth pair of legs is a “reserve”, so to speak, in case he loses one or two legs. These creatures do not have regeneration (restoration of lost fragments), which means that if they lose a limb they are forced to remain skinny for the rest of their lives. But does this interfere with their normal life? We think not and here's why. French zoologists helped figure this out. They noticed that “incomplete” spiders are not nonsense for nature. Approximately ten percent of individuals live without one or two legs, and this does not prevent them from hunting, defending and reproducing. From which we can conclude that the “backup” legs are the spider’s salvation in moments of danger. Apparently, when nature “thought” how many legs a spider should have in its daily life, it “came” to the conclusion that the energy needed to regenerate lost parts of the body is more needed by spiders in other areas of their life - for hunting, reproduction, growth and so on.

It turns out that from birth these creatures are endowed with an “extra” pair of legs! These are the wonders of nature! But if the spider loses more than three legs, then it really becomes a deserved “disabled person.” Such individuals weave low-quality webs, which means they are short-lived residents in nature... And in general, stop counting other people’s paws! How many legs does a spider have - all of them!

Hunting acumen

Interestingly, no matter how many legs a spider has - six, seven or eight - it never sticks to its own web. Do you know why? Yes, because, excuse me, he is not a fool to walk in sticky and circular spider threads, intended for his potential victims. He runs along smooth threads coming from the center (radial)! And he determines the location of his victim in a huge web by touching the threads: whichever one is stretched, the prey is on that one!

We constantly come into contact with spiders - in nature, at the dacha and even in our apartments. They are everywhere, yet most of us know little about them. For example, how many legs does a spider have? Or what does he eat, especially when the apartment is absolutely clean? What is arachnophobia and what is its cause? We will answer these and many other interesting questions today.

About arachnophobia

Science knows more than 40 thousand species of spiders. Some stand out for their size, others for their toxicity, and others for their color. But at the same time, for the majority, the appearance of absolutely all arachnids is unattractive, and some experience panic fear. Such people are called arachnophobes.

This is interesting! According to statistics, the fear of spiders is much stronger than the fear of firearms and flying on airplanes!

But why are people afraid of spiders? After all, if you look at it, the arachnid has much more reasons to fear a person - he has much less chance of causing us any harm than we have in relation to him. Thus, the phobia itself seems somewhat irrational.

There is a theory that the fear of spiders dates back 350 million years ago, to a time when humans did not yet exist. Fossil arachnids were mostly poisonous and posed a serious threat to primates. As a result, the latter developed a reflex of situational readiness - when a spider appeared, they were forced to hide with lightning speed. With time deadly species became much less, but the instinctive fear remained. Thus, it turns out that arachophobia developed as part of human evolution.

This is interesting! Arachnophobia is unknown to some peoples, mostly uncivilized ones - some of them, including children, can quite naturally stroke a rather big spiders, others even eat them!

About legs

As for the spider's legs themselves, what is interesting is not so much their number as their purpose. So, the spider has eight legs and each has six joints; if you count, it turns out that he has forty-eight tribes.

This is interesting! It is the number of legs that distinguishes spiders from insects! The latter have six of them!

What can a spider do with them?

• Some species, when moving, are capable of developing impressive speeds and very quickly overtaking potential prey.
• Others can make long jumps; such spiders are predominantly short, and the jump distance is usually about 50 times their body size.
• The legs of a spider are not only a means of transportation, but also an organ of smell. With their help, he can successfully hunt, determining whether the prey caught in the web is edible.

This is interesting! The spider can be easily lured out by playing the violin. And this is not evidence that arachnids are music lovers. Just the sound of this instrument generates vibrations to which spiders react while hunting!

About being close to people

Spiders are most active in those places where food is abundant. The spider's diet will depend on its species, but mainly insects. There are quite a lot of the latter in the warm season wildlife However, even in summer, spiders are often found in residential areas.

So, why does this happen - why do spiders appear in the apartment? There are several explanations for this.

• Again an abundance of insects. These could be cockroaches, bedbugs, ants and other domestic animals that multiply quickly and constantly move throughout all rooms.
• Unsanitary conditions. Cluttered balconies, irregular cleaning of the house, fungus and mold in the corners - all this is ideal soil for the active reproduction of potential food for spiders.
• High humidity. Most often, high humidity occurs in apartments located on the ground floors, as well as in private houses with poorly installed floor coverings. Plus, if there is a basement or cellar nearby, and the windows face the shady side, then this only aggravates the situation. Such conditions are attractive to many insects, after which spiders will certainly follow.

Where do spiders come from in an apartment? They enter living spaces through ventilation shafts, through cracks in window frames, or simply on the owners’ clothes. Moreover, in the latter option, you can bring into your home not the spider itself, but its clutch, from which small spiders will subsequently hatch. And if there is something for them to enjoy in your apartment, they will happily stay.

This is interesting! Typically, spiders weave their webs where the victim is supposed to fall into it. Thus, you can independently establish the epicenter of the breeding of domestic insects, which will help get rid of the nest and the entire colony of uninvited guests!

Who settles next to us

Now let's find out which spiders live in apartments. The following can perfectly exist next to us:

• The haymaker spider, also known as the window spider or centipede. Its body can have a different structure, which depends on the subspecies, and different sizes - from 0.2 to 1 cm. It has very long legs - about five times longer than the length of the body. The haymaker spider weaves its webs in corners, often on window frames, and, standing upside down, waits for prey to fall into them. As soon as the victim becomes entangled in the web, he immediately appears near her, bites and injects poison.
  

  This is interesting! Cannibalism is observed. For example, in winter, when there are practically no insects, it no longer weaves a web, but goes in search of food on its own. It finds the web of another spider and begins to create vibrations, and when the owner comes running and is about to attack, the centipede rushes at him, entangles him in the web with its long legs and bites him! The harvest spider can be recognized by its very long legs and dark knee segments

• House spider. This arthropod has a yellowish body with a brown pattern. The size of females ranges from 0.7 to 1.2 cm, males are smaller - from 0.6 to 0.9 cm. The house spider is also a fairly common neighbor of humans, and its trapping nets are funnel-shaped.

Sometimes so-called hobo spiders penetrate into living spaces. They do not weave trapping nets and hunt exclusively on the move - they rush at their prey in one swift leap. However, they do not stay in apartments for long and leave after eating the caught prey.

A little about nutrition

Quite often, people are sincerely surprised and cannot understand what spiders eat in their apartment, where there are no insects. In this case, it is important to remember one thing - even if you are sure that no one lives in your house except you, the appearance of spiders always indicates the opposite.

If a spider came into your house and wove a web in it, it means that there is a victim nearby that can fall into it. You may not see these small insects, but at least someone definitely lives in any apartment (provided that you do not chemically disinfest it every week).

Spiders living in apartments are insectivores and eat almost everything with legs, antennae and wings:

• silverfish can live quietly under your bathroom;
• in the kitchen where there is a vase of apples, tiny fruit flies can settle;
• food pantries are often infested with various beetles that eat cereals, flour, etc.;
• in addition, it could be flies and mosquitoes, insect larvae and other spiders accidentally flying in from the street.

This is interesting! By eating insects, spiders bring us great benefits. And if the latter did not exist, then in the abundance of the former we would simply choke!

Execution cannot be pardoned

There are several signs that tell what the killing of a spider promises, and there are even some that contradict each other. But today we will move away from folk beliefs and look at a few theories that we think might explain why you shouldn't kill spiders.

1. According to legend, once upon a time a spider's web saved a man's life. He was persecuted and, forced to flee, hid in a cave, which was almost completely entangled in spider webs. The pursuers were never able to find the fugitive; they didn’t even bother to examine the cave - there were so many cobwebs in it.
2. The second version, which tells why you should not kill spiders in the house, is based on their active use in folk medicine past times. In ancient times, healers mainly used various decoctions and infusions to heal the sick, to which they added not only herbs, but also insects. Often the role of a healing “ingredient” was a spider, ideally poisonous. They treated with poison, so killing a spider without any serious purpose promised the rapid development of the disease.
3. The third legend says that spiders attract happiness - it gets entangled in their web and remains in the house. And the owner of the fishing nets, who has settled in the living quarters, is a symbol good news and well-being. For this reason, killing a spider means driving away happiness from the house - there will be no one to spin the web and all the good things from the house will soon “fly away” along with the last silk threads.

Small house spiders are not capable of causing harm to human health. And if there are several of them, then this is a reason to pay attention to the cleanliness of your own home. In this situation, it is not the spiders that should be destroyed, but the reason why they ended up in the apartment. Remember, spiders will always live where there is food for them.