Species composition of spiders

In the Middle Ages, the most incredible and curious legends about spiders were widespread. It was believed that all spiders were terribly dangerous. But all sorts of terrible stories on this score, as a rule, were shameless deception. People believed that the spider was a rival of the bee, which collected not sweet nectar from flowers, but bitter poison. But this is an obvious misunderstanding. Spiders did not sit on flowers in order to collect poison: they were waiting for bees to catch and eat them. In this case, the spiders took on the color of the flower for camouflage.

Thanks to a misunderstanding, the Apulian tarantula even became famous throughout the world. The tarantella is named after him. This dance, widespread in the south of Italy, without which not a single folk festival is complete, was born in Apulia somewhere between the 13th and 18th centuries AD. e. Its appearance is associated with a method of treating a disease that has been practiced since ancient times, from which, at the height of summer, primarily young men working in the fields suffered.

Among the many thousands of species of spiders, there are only a few whose venom is dangerous to humans. For example, the outwardly scary Zigella and Cyclosa spiders are actually completely harmless. For example, they bring more benefits to humans than harm. For example, in folk medicine, fresh spider webs have been used since ancient times as a plaster. It stops the bleeding and disinfects the wound. Some tropical spiders weave such strong webs that natives use them for fishing nets and nets. In ancient Rome, doctors often recommended that a sick person wear a spider bag around his neck to cure malaria and other diseases. Here is a similar recipe from a medical reference book compiled by a certain Watson back in 1750: “Carefully cover a live spider with bread crumb, but so as not to damage it, and let the patient quickly swallow. This is a very effective medicine...”

Spiders are combined with scorpions and ticks in the class of arachnids and belong to the phylum of arthropods, like insects and crayfish. The name is a class of arachnids and belongs to the phylum of arthropods, like insects and crayfish. The name of the class arachnids (Arachnoidea) comes from the Greek arachne - spider. An ancient Greek myth tells of a girl named Arachne who dared to compete with the goddess Athena.

Spiders are the largest order of arachnids. More than 20,000 species have been described, and experts believe that this figure will increase significantly in the future, since the fauna of spiders around the globe has been studied very unevenly and incompletely. All land is inhabited by spiders. Like insects and mites, they live everywhere, and there is literally no corner of nature where there are not some species of spiders.

To move on to a more detailed consideration of spiders, let's try to immediately understand the nature of this huge order and the features of its diversity. Indeed, in all the main life manifestations that support the existence of the species - obtaining food, reproduction, settlement and surviving unfavorable conditions - spiders use webs. It is used to make a shelter and a catching device, with its help a complex mating procedure takes place, an egg cocoon is woven from it and a wintering sac on it, the young are carried by the wind, etc. The spider interacts with the outside world not so much directly as other animals, through its arachnoid adaptations that each species has to suit its life needs and the specific environment in which it lives. In other words, relationships with the environment are carried out in spiders through web activity, which, like all spider behavior, is based on instincts. A comparative study of spiders shows that the evolution of web activity, the evolution of instincts is the leading direction of the evolutionary development of spiders, in which this unique order has reached an unprecedented peak.

A clear confirmation is the nature of the diversity of spiders. Web devices represent the evolutionary series of very simple to extremely complex and sophisticated, be it egg cocoons, lairs and nests, or trapping nets. At the same time, the construction of web devices is becoming more complicated. It is remarkable that the general type of structure of the spider is firmly preserved. The sizes of spiders, coloring, external shape are different, the structure of individual organs changes, but all this endless diversity is contained within the framework of a certain stereotype. A spider is always a spider. Unity is also maintained in a number of biological features, type of nutrition, individual development, etc.

Detachment Harvesters (Opiliones)

Often on a fence or tree trunk we can find some kind of inconspicuous animal - like a spider, only with very long and thin legs. Sensing danger, he runs on stilt legs, but somehow awkwardly. If you grab one of its legs, it immediately comes off and the spider runs away. The severed leg, when placed down, quickly bends, as if someone were mowing with a small scythe. This feature determined the name of these animals - haymakers. Of course, it's better to lose a leg than your life. Sometimes there are haymakers with seven or even six legs, which means that the ones that were torn off went to some predator. The harvestmen themselves feed on small invertebrates.

More than 120 species of harvestmen are found in Russia. Common harvestman (Phalanhius opilio). The size of this harvester reaches 9 mm, the length of the legs is up to 50 mm. Hunts mainly at dusk and at night, but is sometimes active during the day.

Order of spiders (Aranei)

The body of spiders is divided into two sections: the cephalothorax and abdomen. There are 4 pairs of legs on the cephalothorax, and 4 pairs of eyes on the top of the head. A pair of short tentacles is directed forward; in males, the ends of the tentacles are thickened.

A characteristic feature of all spiders is the ability to secrete a special liquid from the warts at the end of the abdomen, which immediately hardens into a web. The web varies depending on its purpose. Spiders use it to make nets to catch prey, weave shelter for themselves, make a cocoon to protect eggs, and use it for dispersal.

All spiders are predators, feeding most often on insects. They get them either by lying in wait, or actively pursuing them, or using trapping nets. The shape of the trapping nets varies among spiders. To kill prey, spiders use curved hook-shaped jaws (chelicerae), with a channel inside through which poison flows into the victim’s body. (In the middle zone of our country there are no spiders that are life-threatening to humans, but the bite of some spiders can be very painful.)

After laying eggs, the female either guards the cocoon with eggs while sitting in a shelter, or carries it with her.

Young spiders emerging from eggs usually stick together at first and then scatter. In some species, they try to climb somewhere higher - on fences, bushes, trees. Here they release a small, light web, which is picked up by the wind and, together with the spider at its end, carried away into the distance. This is how the settlement of young spiders occurs. This usually happens in the fall, during the “Indian summer”, and then everywhere on the bushes and fences we see cobwebs shining in the sun.

Adult spiders die after the end of the breeding season.

Family of spiders - wolves (Lycosidae)

Fast running spiders common in most natural habitats. They are especially noticeable in early summer, before the grass has grown. Coloration ranges from gray to dark brown and black, with light stripes on the cephalothorax and streaks on the abdomen. Females wear a cocoon attached to arachnoid warts.

About 80 species of wolf spiders are found in central Russia.

The most common representatives are leopard spiders (Pardosa).

Spider – field leopard (Pardosa agrestis)

The general color background is light gray, the cephalothorax has three yellow longitudinal stripes. Common in dry, open areas.

They hunt on the surface of the soil. After hatching from the eggs, the spiders climb onto the female's abdomen and live here for some time under her protection.

Widely distributed throughout Russia.

Earth spider (Trochosa terricola)

The earth spider is larger than leopard spiders, measuring 10-12 mm. Hunts at dusk, during the day it hides under stones and dead wood.

Widely distributed throughout the forest zone of Russia.