Are spiders actually insects? The answer is not what you think

Spiders are also known as web insects, flat spiders, garden spiders, eight-legged hydra, xizi, bosi, and so on. They are the general term for all species in the order Araneae, class Arachnida, phylum Arthropoda. They are distributed worldwide except in Antarctica, with a vast number of species. There are more than 40,000 species of spiders in nature. Let us take a look below at whether spiders are insects!

Are spiders insects

Spiders are not insects. Spiders belong to the phylum Arthropoda, class Arachnida, and taxonomically belong to a group adjacent to insects within the same larger family, because the definition of an insect is "a body divided into three sections, head, thorax, and abdomen; 2 pairs of wings and three pairs of legs; 1 pair of antennae growing on the head; skeleton wrapped on the outside of the body; form changes greatly throughout life." Spiders do not conform to the above characteristics of insects, but like insects they all belong to the large family of the phylum Arthropoda among invertebrates, which shows that the two share many common points. Many Westerners, including the famous Fabre, classified spiders and scorpions as "bugs," which fully shows that their relationship is very close.

What food do spiders eat

Spiders are carnivorous animals with broad feeding habits. Most of their food is insects or other arthropods, and sometimes they can prey on animals several times larger than themselves, such as the South American bird-eating spider, which sometimes preys on small birds, rodents, and so on. Spiders have no mandibles in the mouth and do not directly swallow solid food. After catching prey with a web, they first inject venom secreted by the venom glands in the chelicerae into the captured prey to kill it, and the digestive enzymes secreted by the midgut are poured into the tissues of the captured prey torn apart by the chelicerae, quickly breaking it down into liquid, which is then sucked into the digestive tract.

Spider species classification

1. Hunting spiders: Hunting spiders are common spiders in hilly areas, with large populations and strong predatory ability, and play a very important role in controlling pest populations. Common ones include the high-legged spider, the white-fronted huntsman spider, and so on.

2. Web-building spiders: The most important characteristic of web-building spiders is web-building behavior. Through the protrusions at the tips of the silk glands they secrete a sticky liquid, and this sticky liquid coagulates into very fine silk upon contact with air. The web made of silk is highly sticky and is the main means of predation. For insects stuck in the web, they first inject a special liquid into the prey, digestive enzymes. These digestive enzymes can make the insect faint, twitch, and even die, and cause the body to liquefy. After liquefaction, they feed by sucking, such as the orchard spider, the black widow, and so on.

3. Cave spiders: Cave spiders like to hide in sand piles or holes and build webs at the entrance of the hole. The web itself is not sticky and is used purely to sense the size of prey and then prey on it, such as bird-eating spiders, Chinese wolf spiders, grooved hard-skinned ground spiders, and so on.