Watch Our Animals online: Episode 14 Spiders

There are lots of different sorts of spiders. Spiders are not insects. Most can’t hurt you but some can make you very sick. That's why it's best not to touch any spiders. Look but don't touch! Spiders have no bones. Their tough skin serves as a protective outer skeleton. All spiders have 8 legs and all spin silk. Spiders make silk inside their bodies, pulling it out with their legs from holes near their bottom. Some webs are neat and tidy. Others are very messy. Webs are used to catch insects to eat. The insects stick to the sticky threads of the web. Why don't spiders stick to their own webs? They have oil on their bodies. This stops them sticking to their own webs. Spiders eat only liquids. They inject poison to paralyse their meal and to turn it into a liquid. They then drink this liquid. If a spider isn't hungry it may wrap its meal up in more sticky threads to save and eat later. Male spiders are usually smaller than the females. After mating some female spiders eat the male. The female then lays lots of tiny eggs. Tiny baby spiders hatch from the eggs. Spider silk cannot be dissolved in water and is the strongest natural fibre known. People used to collect spider's webs to help them clean and protect cuts to their skin. Spiders are helpful to people because they eat harmful insects like locusts which destroy crops, and flies and mosquitoes which carry diseases.

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