Where Does Spiders Come From?
WouterSpiders are one of the oldest animals to inhabit land. They evolved from the ancestors of arachnids, which were thick-waisted arthropods.
There are two main groups of spiders: Mesothelae and true spiders. These are the same suborder but differ in many ways.
Mesothelae spiders are predators. Their prey is usually other arachnids. However, they also consume insects, mites, and ticks.
True spiders are similar to Mesothelae, but they have a spinneret at the end of their abdomen. This helps them produce silk, which is used for a number of purposes. Some spiders use the silk as a protective covering for their eggs.
Mesothelae spiders were probably ground dwelling predators. They lived in caves and soil burrows. The earliest known exclusively terrestrial arachnid is Palaeotarbus jerami, which dates back to the Silurian period. It had eight legs and a triangular cephalothorax.
Attercopus fimbriunguis, which dates back to the Devonian period, is a good example of a spider that bears the earliest known silk-producing spigots. In addition to producing silk, the spigots likely used it to line the spider’s nest or to produce egg cases.
The earliest true spiders had a thin-waisted body, abdominal segmentation, and a spinneret. Nephila jurassica, the largest fossil spider, is 165 million years old.
In the United States, there are over 46,000 species of spiders. Most are predators. Some of them feed on other spiders, while others feed on birds and small mammals.
House spiders are commonly seen in houses, and there are different species of them. A typical house spider lives for about two years. During the spring and summer, the females lay an egg sac and stay with it for the rest of the year.
