Spiders: How many legs do they have and how long are they?

Everyone has different attitudes toward spiders. But most often, these predatory, and often aggressive, creatures evoke only fear or perhaps even a certain amount of disgust. Some will examine them with curiosity and interest, while others will want to move away from the encounter as quickly as possible.

But those who really thoroughly study these creatures, their lives, are arachnophiles, who are just love and admire these creatures, studying them and conducting all the necessary research. They also breed them and thoroughly study their structure and life processes.

And yet these strange and, at times, incredibly scary creaturesSpiders, which have existed since ancient times, are of interest not only to scientists but also to ordinary people who gaze at them with curiosity. But the most common question that concerns everyone, regardless of age (children and adults), is how many legs a spider has. And there's a lot of debate surrounding this.

Studying arachnology

In order to receive the exact answer to the question To find out how many legs a spider has, you can use one of two methods:

1. The study of information that has already been previously confirmed by observations.
2. Personal observation.

Of course, the second method is the fastest, since it simply requires catching the spider and counting its legs. But it's possible to make a mistake!

Unfortunately, not all people know that The spider has more than just legs, but also powerful mandibles, which are typically found in predators. They are often counted, along with the legs. It is known that the spider uses these mandibles to capture and then hold its prey. They are located on the head. The legs of spiders, however, are located on the middle segment of the body, also known as the cephalothorax.

As for the abdomen itself, it is completely free and has no limbs on it, except for the gill legs and even then they were atrophied. But these stalks had changed so much over time that they had turned into ordinary spider warts.

If you're looking for information that's readily available, you should start with toxicology. It's known that Sometimes spiders are classified as insects, but that's incorrect! If they're mistaken for insects, then they should only have three pairs of legs. However, these creatures are known to belong to a separate class from insects, which are much closer in features to scorpions.

If we eliminate all the errors and misconceptions in this matter, we can easily find the answer to the most important question: how many legs does a spider have? It is known that spiders, regardless of species, have exactly four pairs of legs.

Structure of spider web legs and their function

So, a spider has 8 legs, or 4 pairs of legs. Each leg consists of 7 segments:

1. Basin.
2. Swivel.
3. Hip.
4. Knee.
5. Shin.
6. Forepaw.
7. Paw.

The feet of any spider are very sensitive. there is a huge number of hairs - receptorsIt's the legs that help spiders detect approaching prey or the threat of an enemy. Their feet help them recognize scents and navigate well. The main function of the feet is to move, dig burrows and shelters, spin webs, defend against enemies, and attack prey.

Experiments on spiders

At all an experiment was recently conducted In France, scientists were trying to figure out what would happen to a spider if it suddenly lost one or two of its legs. It turned out that they don't even notice their loss.

The experiment was conducted as follows: Several spider plants were planted in a small container, with all their legs intact. Another container contained spiders that had lost one or two legs for various reasons. They were observed for some time. The scientists discovered that the spiders in both containers performed web-spinning, foraging, and other vital functions identically.

But the results of this study can be easily explained: nature itself took care of spiders And she gave them a back pair of legs as a backup in case their front legs were lost. Incidentally, such individuals are quite common. But unfortunately, encountering a spider with four or five legs is practically impossible. Such a loss would usually be life-threatening.

Length of spider legs

The length of the legs of spiders depends on the species. This is usually a result of how this or that species adapted to survive under certain conditions of their existence. If we were to compile a pedestal of record holders based on leg length, the top six positions would be occupied by the following arachnid species:

1. The Brazilian wanderer. Its legs reach 15 centimeters in length.
2. Hunter (15 centimeters).
3. Giant baboon (10 centimeters).
4. Goliath is a tarantula (more than 10 centimeters).
5. Wall tegenaria (6 centimeters).
6. Nephila - golden weaver (5 centimeters).

Very often in life, a person can encounter a spider with long legs and a gray body, which moves quite quickly. Of course, each person reacts to them differentlySome simply don't notice them, while others are terrified. But not everyone knows that this arthropod isn't a spider at all, despite its striking resemblance. It's popularly known as a "false spider." Scientifically, they're also known as "daddy longlegs." It's easy to tell them apart if you know their basic distinguishing features: the abdomen of a "spider" is dissected, almost completely fused with the cephalothorax. Spiders, on the other hand, have a completely solid abdomen, connected to the head by a thin membrane.

Knowing how many legs a spider has will help you remember how many eyes it has. It is known that representatives of the arachnids are also the owners of 4 pairs of eyesScientific books typically describe arachnids by their overall body length, but rarely mention their leg length. Therefore, this interesting information can only be found by studying a particular arachnid species in more detail, or by specifically searching for it.

It is worth remembering that not always all spidersSpiders that have the same body size and even coloration may have identically sized legs. It's very common to see spiders in the wild that appear identical in size and have different leg lengths.