Report – Living things By Ethan Audet

Classification.
What is it? My talk is on the Red-Back Spider

Description.
What does it look like? The adult female has a black body about 1 centimetre
long, with a red or orange stripe down it’s back.
Males are light brown and grow only half as big.
Young spiders are grey with dark spots, with females
growing a white stripe.

Habitat.
Where does it live? Red-Back spiders like to live in untidy webs in dry, dark
areas like logs, under rocks, flower pots, under houses,
garden sheds, shoes and toys.

Movement.
How does it move? They move on 8 skinny legs mostly at night to spin webs
and hide in the day.
Young spiders will drift on a strand of web silk on the
wind
and make their own webs where they land.

Feeding habits.
What does it eat? Red-back spiders usually eat insects, but can catch bigger
animals in their webs, like other spiders, lizards, mice,
frogs and even snakes.
They kill by injecting highly poisonous venom, which
turns the guts to a liquid the spider can drink.

Babies. Baby spiderlings will eat their brothers and sisters.

They take 2 to 3 months to grow up and can lay 3 to 8
egg sacs with up to 300 eggs in each.

Other facts. Red-backs are dangerous to people.

Bites are very painful, can cause fever and even death if
not treated with anti-venom.