Interesting facts about arachnids. Class Arachnids: 10 interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:44

With their frightening and not always pleasant appearance, spiders, despite their small size, cause at least hostility in more than half of humanity. Meanwhile, there are those who keep them as pets, along with hamsters or parrots. Have you ever thought about how much we know about the representatives of this part of the animal world? We recommend that you learn more about the Arachnida class, including 10 interesting facts about arachnids that will surprise and perhaps intrigue you.

The class combines a fairly large group of diverse and completely different arthropods. It includes three branches: scorpions, ticks and spiders, in total - 114 thousand species, including almost 2000 fossils. The most numerous are the second and third groups - 55 and 44 thousand people.representatives, respectively. The obsolete name for the class Arachnida is Arachnida. It comes from the Greek language and, according to one version, is associated with Arachne, a skilled weaver. Puffed up, she announced that she was superior to Athena herself in her skill, and invited her to the competition. Along with the confession, she received the wrath of the goddess and was turned into a spider, doomed to forever weave and hang in her webs. Perhaps it is with this story that you can safely begin all the interesting facts about arachnids.

Dimensions and structure

Representatives of the class are ubiquitous, but are predominantly terrestrial inhabitants, there are also inhabitants of fresh water bodies, as well as one marine species. The sizes of these arthropods range from a few microns to tens of centimeters. In the structure, it is customary to distinguish two sections: the opisthosoma (abdomen) and the prosoma (cephalothorax), carrying the limbs of the chelicerae, walking legs and pedipalps. The body of all arachnids is covered with a thin cuticle of chitin. Spiders and scorpions have specialized organs - a venomous apparatus, and the former also have a spinning apparatus. By type of food, almost all arachnids are predators, and only a few species have adapted to plant foods.

And now we invite you to find out the most unusual and interesting facts about arachnids (Arachnid), namely about spiders, as the most famous and mysterious representatives of the class.

Fact 1: Sizes

We are used to seeing small spiders at home or on the street, but we don’t even think about what is somewherethen in the tropical wilds of South America there lives a species that is huge by the standards of the class - this is Theraphosa Blond (photo below), it is also known as the goliath tarantula. Body sizes reach up to 10 cm, and with straightened legs up to 25-30 cm. It is capable of catching mice, frogs and toads, lizards and, according to some reports, small birds.

Fact 2: About the Web

The web is a secret secreted from special glands, which quickly hardens in the air and takes on a form familiar to all of us. Its chemical nature is a protein, similar in composition to silk threads. This is what the Arachnida class is famous for. Interesting facts about the web are numerous. It is very thin and light, but at the same time strong. So, the mass of the web, which can braid the entire planet, will be only a little more than 300 grams.

But at the same time, if you imagine that it was woven from spider threads as thick as an ordinary pencil, then it is able to stop the plane. The largest cobwebs are weaved by large rows of nephiles. They are also known as banana spiders and have a body size of up to 4 cm, and a leg span of up to 12 cm. The largest web in the world was recorded recently in Mantadia (National Park) in Madagascar. The diameter of the "trapping net" was 25 meters. Weaved such a miracle by Darwin's spider. After studying the characteristics of the web, scientists came to the conclusion that it is unique in strength and exceeds all similar indicators of other types by 10 times.

Fact 3: Reproduction

Among the spiders, the sexualdimorphism, females are larger (sometimes significantly) males, besides they live longer. This is due to several factors. Firstly, the males of many species, after fertilizing the eggs, die themselves, and secondly, the female can kill them. Interesting facts about arthropods (Arachnids in this case) would be unthinkable without mentioning the infamous black widow (karakurt). Its venom is much more toxic to humans than a rattlesnake. The name of the spider is due to the fact that after fertilization, in most cases, the female simply eats the male. The number of eggs laid can be up to 20,000.

Fact 4: Poison

"The Guinness Book of Records" in 2010 recognized the genus of Brazilian wandering spiders as the most poisonous in terms of strength and number of species. Their habitat is limited to Central and South America. The genus includes, according to the latest data, eight species, and the last one was discovered quite recently - in 2001. Their venom contains a dangerous and powerful neurotoxin that, at toxic concentrations, causes uncontrolled muscle contractions and stops breathing. However, there is an effective antidote that keeps the number of deaths to a minimum.

Fact 5: Food

The way of eating and diet largely depend on the species. So, some representatives of arachnids can starve from several days to a year. However, interesting facts in biology (Arachnids are meant, in particular) will be incomplete without assumptions from the series: “What if?” So, even with a hunger strikeFor some species, spiders eat up a total biomass in a year that exceeds the volume of all mankind. That is, if they ate people, they would easily deal with us in three days.

Spiders are hunters, but they get their food in different ways. For example, the spinning queen is fishing. Having connected two trees with a web, she lowers a free thread with droplets of secret at the end and watches. As soon as a potential victim appears, she begins to swing the "fishing rod", thereby attracting attention. Moths and other insects, having stuck, no longer have a chance to free themselves, and the spider begins to quietly pull the thread back towards itself.

Fact 6: Food revisited

Interesting arachnid facts go beyond how these arthropods hunt and eat. A spider does not always choose a victim for itself, often it becomes one itself. It is for certain known about the existence of edible specimens, and you can even try them in the public domain. Asian cuisine is especially famous for the abundance of such exotics. And even the poisonous tarantula in its habitats, the indigenous people (Cambodia, Laos) are happy to roast at the stake. Now this largely serves to attract curious tourists.

Fact 7: Vegetarian spider

Listing interesting facts about arachnids, it is impossible not to mention this representative of the class. Most spiders are predators. However, as you know, there are exceptions to all rules, in this case it is Bagheera Kipling. A small bright-colored spider (pictured) lives on acacias and feeds on vegetation.

It has been observed that in years of severe drought and lack of food supply, they can turn to cannibalism.

Fact 8: Hunting

Weaving a skillful web is not for all spiders. There are those who use thin threads only as a material for building a dwelling in which the female subsequently lays her eggs. Jumping spiders are active diurnal hunters and have sharp eyesight. They have an interesting hydraulic system of the body, which allows, as a result of a change in blood pressure, to expand the limbs and jump over a long distance. It is noteworthy that, before committing them, the spider takes precautions and is fixed with a cobweb thread to its original place. The photo below is a gray morph.

Fact 9: Longevity

It is difficult to say unequivocally about how long spiders live. It is only known that the minimum is before the period of puberty and mating (from several months to a year). That is, the individual dies after it fulfills its purpose - the continuation of the genus. However, interesting facts about arachnids should definitely include tarantulas. They are real champions in life expectancy, although it directly depends on gender. Males die after the first mating. Females, on the other hand, can live for years or even decades. It was noted that in captivity, subject to all conditions of detention, some specimens reached the age of 30 years.

Fact 10: Scorpions

These amazingcreatures are perhaps the most ancient arthropods that once came out of the sea to land (more than 400 million years ago), however, their size then was very impressive - up to 1 m in length. The current species is much more modest in size. The largest representative of the detachment is the imperial scorpion (up to 20 cm), the smallest is about 13 mm. They feed exclusively on live food, do not drink water, and can starve for two years. The most poisonous representative is the Israeli scorpion, which accounts for 90% of all people killed by the bite of these arthropods in North Africa.

These are very dangerous arachnids. Interesting facts about scorpions complete the top 10 amazing facts about this class of arthropods. However, this is not the whole list, because nature leaves a lot of mysteries and secrets for a person.