She will lay up to 1,000 eggs at a time, which are kept safe in a spun-silk egg sac.īrazilian wandering spiders typically live for one or two years. The female then can store the sperm in a separate chamber from the eggs until she is ready to fertilize them. Once she does pick one, the male needs to watch out females often attack the males once copulation is finished. The female can be picky, and she often turns down many males before choosing a mating partner. Males perform a dance to get females' attention, and males often fight each other over the female. Males approach females cautiously when attempting to mate, according to the biology department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (opens in new tab). This dimorphism is no different in the Brazilian wandering spider. ![]() In almost all spider species, the female is larger than the male. (Image credit: LeoMercon/iStock/Getty Images) (opens in new tab) MatingĪ Brazilian wandering spider guarding her eggs in Linhares, in the southeast of Brazil. "Their bites are a means of self-defense and only done if they are provoked intentionally or by accident," Sewlal said. Their threatened stance serves as a warning, indicating to predators that the poisonous spider is ready to attack. This dramatic and intimidating posture exposes the scarlet hair surrounding the fangs on some species. "When threatened, they will raise their first two pairs of legs," Sewlal said. But these behaviors are actually defense mechanisms. Some of the female spiders also ate lizards and snakes.īecause of the toxicity of their bite and their alarming-looking posture, these spiders have a reputation for being aggressive. DNA metabarcoding, a technique that examines the DNA and RNA in a sample, of the guts of 57 spiders identified 96 prey species, including flies, beetles, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets, according to research from the University of Tolima and the University of Ibagué in Colombia (opens in new tab). Research into one species of Brazilian wandering spider, Phoneutria boliviensis, revealed that these spiders eat a mix of arthropods and reptiles. They eat insects, other spiders and sometimes, small amphibians, reptiles and mice. They spend most of their day hiding under logs or in crevices, and come out to hunt at night. ![]() (Image credit: phototrip/iStock/Getty Images) (opens in new tab)Īccording to Sewlal, these arachnids "are called wandering spiders because they do not build webs but wander on the forest floor at night, actively hunting prey." They kill by both ambush and direct attack. The Brazilian wandering spider called Phoneutria boliviensis is found in Central and South America’s dry and humid tropical forests. However, Vetter noted, in many cases of cargo infestation, the spider in question is a harmless banana spider (genus Cupiennius) that is misidentified as a Phoneutria. Vetter, a research associate in the department of entomology at the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote that specimens of these powerful arachnids have been mistakenly exported to North America and Europe in banana shipments. Some of the species also can be found throughout Central and South America, from Costa Rica to Argentina, according to a 2008 article in the journal American Entomologist (opens in new tab). There are nine species of Brazilian wandering spider, all of which are nocturnal and can be found in Brazil. But, as the late Jo-Anne Sewlal, an arachnologist at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, pointed out, "Classifying an animal as deadly is controversial," as the amount of damage depends on the amount of venom injected. Guinness World Records has previously named the Brazilian wandering spider the world's most venomous spider multiple times (though the current record-holder is the Sydney funnel-web spider, Atrax robustus, according to Guinness (opens in new tab)).
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