Spider

Araneae Temporal range: Pennsylvanian – Holocene, 319 mya to present
An assortment of different spiders.
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae Carl Alexander Clerck 1757
Suborders
Mesothelae Opisthothelae
Diversity[1]
113 families, c. 46,000 species

Spiders (class Arachnida, order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods. They have eight legs, and mouthparts (chelicerae) with fangs that inject venom. Most make silk. The spiders are seventh in number of species of all animal orders.^[2] About 48,000 spider species, and 120 families have been recorded by taxonomists.^[3] Over twenty different classifications have been proposed since 1900.^[4]p3

Spiders live on every continent except for Antarctica, and in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea. Almost all spiders are predators, and most eat insects. They catch their prey in several ways. Some build a spider web, and some use a thread of silk that they throw at the insect. Some kinds of spiders hide in holes in the ground, then run out and grab an insect that walks by. Others will make web 'nets' to throw at passing insects. Or they go out and simply attack their prey. Some can jump quite well and hunt by sneaking close to an insect and then jumping on it.

1. ↑ "Currently valid spider genera and species". World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
2. ↑ Sebastin PA & KV Peter (ed) 2009. Spiders of India. Universities Press. ISBN 978-81-7371-641-6
3. ↑ Platnick, Norman I. (2009). "The World Spider Catalog, version 9.5". American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
4. ↑ Foelix, Rainer F. 1996 (1996). Biology of spiders. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509593-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)