Spiders belong to the order of arthropods that are voracious. They do not pose a danger to people and pets, do not cause harm, and do not cause problems. On the contrary, these creatures are of great use in the apartment; they catch midges, mosquitoes, flies, bedbugs, and cockroaches.
They are predators by nature, so insects form the basis of their diet. An exception is the horse that lives in the countries of Central America; it prefers to eat the green part of the acacia. But it is still worthwhile to carefully familiarize yourself with the feeding habits of these creatures.
What do spiders eat in the apartment?
Exotic pets eat everything they eat in the wild. The owners give their charges various insects, scale insects, snails, caterpillars, as well as small vertebrates, reptiles, and amphibians. Large animals are fed rodents.
House spiders, which make their way into a room through open windows, doors, cracks in the wall, eat cockroaches, flies, fruit flies, mosquitoes, moth caterpillars, an accidentally flown butterfly, wasp, and bee. There are many arachnids in houses with complete unsanitary conditions and many pests. Small spiders eat all the living creatures that are in the apartment.
What spiders can eat depends directly on their own size. Small predatory individuals choose fruit flies, mosquitoes, and caterpillars. A medium-sized arthropod can only feed on insects - it catches flies, bees, and wasps. If too large a victim gets entangled in the web, the spider frees it. The same applies to bedbugs, since they emit an unpleasant odor in self-defense.
Dream Interpretation – Leather
Seeing leather as a material in a dream portends strengthening friendship and prosperity in love. Pieces and scraps of skin piled up in a heap portend good luck and happiness. Processing leather in a dream means no changes in the course of your business, tanning it is a residue from an unpleasant meeting, sewing something from it means accumulating wealth through frugality.
Leather clothing on someone is good luck in the game and in everything related to money. Being dressed in leather means you will be lucky in love. Seeing suede products in a dream means your charms will conquer any man. Safyan portends help from unexpected sources. Black or dirty skin is a sign of adultery. Cleaning or washing the skin means illness of loved ones.
If in a dream you focus your attention on human skin without any flaws, clean and beautiful, this means that in real life you will be the object of adoration of a prominent man. Smooth and silky skin to the touch - to the fulfillment of desires regarding the creative side of life. Old, loose and wrinkled skin indicates that you will safely reach old age
Sick skin - to wealth; skin with scratches, bruises and scars - to ill-gotten money. Torn and bleeding skin - to a rich groom and an imminent wedding. Being treated for skin diseases in a dream promises health and profit.
Old, loose and wrinkled skin indicates that you will safely reach old age. Sick skin - to wealth; skin with scratches, bruises and scars - to ill-gotten money. Torn and bleeding skin - to a rich groom and an imminent wedding. Being treated for skin diseases in a dream promises health and profit.
Seeing a blister from a burn on the skin is a sign of unexpected events in your personal life. An abscess on the skin means drinking in a fun company; boils mean trouble in the near future, insincerity of friends who are hiding something from you. Sores on the skin mean that the disease will undermine your strength and bring mental exhaustion.
Seeing skin worn away by leprosy means doing something that will bring concern not only to you personally, but to your entire family. Skin covered with a rash from scabies is a sign of fear of failure in a business that you have never done before. Scratching your skin to the point of ulcers, experiencing unbearable itching, means that in reality you will find yourself in bad company and get into a lot of trouble.
Seeing skin completely covered with moles means an addition to the family. A large birthmark on the skin portends twins. The skin of your face or hands dotted with freckles means you will experience a funny adventure in reality. Tanned skin means you will have a successful vacation; white and pale skin means frustration from an insult caused by a loved one. Seeing your skin as black as a black woman’s means that in real life you will be mistaken for someone else.
It personifies the parasitic influence on someone’s part or one’s own vampiric aspirations to capture the victim. Fighting a spider means conflicts with superiors or opposition to the mother’s care. Holding a spider in your hands means receiving a gift. The web is an invisible trap. The symbolic meaning of this creature is associated with the web with which he weaves the world.
Since the web of life and fate is woven by the divine spider, it is perceived as a kind of universal given, the grip of existence. In mythology, the universal mother is depicted in the form of a spider, as a weaver of fate. In dreams, a spider can indicate its own domineering mother or someone’s vampiric presence , forcing you to act according to a plan alien to you.
How does a spider kill its victims?
Arachnids differ somewhat in their lifestyle, behavior, and hunting tactics.
- Animals weave trapping nets and wait for their prey in the center of their creation or in the immediate vicinity. The presence of insects is determined by vibrations.
- They actively search for a victim, exploring the surrounding area. They attack at the right moment.
- Some spiders do not weave trapping webs, but construct the web in the form of a funnel near the burrow or shelter.
Food for spiders
Predators also behave differently - they entangle prey with their threads, leave them for a while, and begin to feed on insects almost instantly. However, initially predators act identically with their victims - they inject a toxic substance.
All spiders have poisonous glands; they kill insects and small vertebrates with chelicerae, which are located in front of the cephalothorax in the form of fangs. A poison with a paralyzing effect, one’s own saliva, is injected into the wound, which turns the insides into a liquid mass.
It takes 5 to 15 minutes for the prey to become usable. All this time, the predator watches the insects, sitting to the side. When the body stops convulsing, the meal begins.
Notes
- ↑ 123
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- ↑ 12345
- ↑ 12
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- ↑ 123
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- ↑ Cooke, J. A. L., Roth, V. D., Miller, F. H. (1972). The urticating hairs of theraphosid spiders. American Museum novitates 2498. —
- ↑ Blaikie, Andrew J; John Ellis, Roshini Sanders, Caroline J. MacEwen (24 May 1997). "". BMJ314(7093):1524–5. DOI:. . Retrieved 2007-03-06.
- ↑. Tarantupedia.
- ↑ R. Bertani, C.S. Fukushima, PIS Júnior (2008). Mating behavior of Sickius longibulbi (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Ischnocolinae), a spider that lacks spermathecae. The Journal of Arachnology 36:331–335.
- ↑ RC Gallon (2003). A new African arboreal genus and species of theraphosid spider (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Stromatopelminae) which lacks spermathecae. The Bulletin of the British Arachnological Society 12 (9), 405–411.
- ↑
- ↑
- ↑
- ↑ Stanley A. Schultz and Marguerite J. Schultz, The Tarantula Keeper's Guide, p. 75
- ↑
How do domestic and wild spiders feed?
Arachnids do not have complete digestive organs. The food is digested from the outside, after which the arthropod absorbs the liquid mass through the mouth. There are no teeth in the mouth either. Chelicerae and pedipalps, similar to tentacles, help crush and grind food. Some spiders are only able to suck up liquid food, while others crush the shell and bite through the skin. The pigtail eats the victim entirely.
Amphibians and rodents take longer to digest. The predator eats a mouse, snake, or frog gradually, turning it in different directions, constantly injecting a new portion of saliva. You can see how spiders eat flies in the video below.
The predator's diet depends on its habitat. An arthropod can go without food for about a month. If there are a large number of insects, it feeds once every 7-10 days. Some members of the family are so “greedy” that they do not crawl to the side until they leave only a shell or an empty space from the victim. In other cases, they leave the prey in reserve.
Industrial chemicals
On the shelves of specialized stores you can see a wide range of insect and spider repellents. For apartments and any other living space, it is better to choose gentle sprays or gels, while for the surrounding area of private houses it is much more practical to use aggressive chemicals.
You need to understand that spiders settle exclusively in places where there is food: mosquitoes, flies, wasps and other insects. First of all, it is necessary to get rid of the cause and only then take on the effect.
Let's consider the most popular and well-proven industrial products that have received many flattering reviews from consumers.
Raid
The most effective aerosols are produced under this brand. Experts recommend using the “From Ants and Cockroaches” series. The product acts instantly and allows you to destroy the spider in just a few seconds.
In addition, Raid has a long residual effect. Having sprayed the problem area once, the next treatment can be carried out a month later. This way you can get rid of the annoying neighborhood forever. After spraying, the aerosol does not smell and does not contain harmful petroleum products, which is the problem with inexpensive analogues.
The manufacturer recommends using Raid indoors, after moving children and pets to another place. After treatment, you must wait until the product dries and only then allow household members and pets into the room. Due to its high efficiency, the cost of the aerosol is at an appropriate level.
Joker Bun
This is a Turkish household product in aerosol format without a pronounced odor. Joker Bun does an excellent job of eliminating all crawling and flying insects, including representatives of the arthropod order. The aerosol does not cause pronounced allergic reactions upon contact with skin, so it can be recommended for allergy sufferers.
The product cannot be used in kitchens near unprotected food, as well as in catering establishments. The manufacturer also recommends removing children and pets from the premises before using the aerosol. The spray works very quickly. A few seconds after application, the spider loses the ability to navigate and dies a couple of minutes later.
When applied to spiders, Joker Bun should be sprayed along baseboards, over large furnishings, corners, window sills and openings, as well as service and ventilation openings in bathrooms, kitchens and other rooms, if there are any.
Raptor
"Raptor" in aerosol format received a lot of positive reviews. Besides the fact that it is inexpensive, it is also in no way inferior in efficiency to foreign analogues. One cylinder is more than enough to treat rooms with a total area of 60 square meters. m.
The product acts quickly enough and maintains the effect for at least a month.
Raptor contains aggressive chemicals, so it should be used with extreme caution in apartments where children and exotic pets live. After treatment, the room must be thoroughly ventilated for at least one hour.
Judging by consumer reviews, the substances included in Raptor can provoke allergic reactions. So allergy sufferers should take a closer look at the above-mentioned remedies. They are noticeably more expensive, but more balanced in this regard.
Where do spiders go in winter?
Arthropods adapt to the onset of cold weather in different ways. Spiders are unable to tolerate temperatures below 0 degrees due to tissue crystallization. Depending on this, spiders can sleep or die in winter.
Young cross spiders and “newborn” wasp spiders migrate on wind-blown spider webs in search of habitat on warm September days. Huddled in a crack in the bark of a tree, spiders sleep in winter.
Sexually mature parents of baby wasps end their life in the summer: the male - in the form of a “wife” dinner after mating, the female - after laying eggs. A similar situation occurs in adult crosses. Autumn is the mating season, when males go in search of females sitting in their web. After fertilization of the female, the male dies. The spider weaves a cocoon in which it lays eggs. Having hidden it in a secluded place (in the bark of trees, cracks in masonry), it also dies. In the spring, spiderlings emerge from the eggs, ready to weave webs.
Males and females of black widows do not survive until the cold weather. At the end of June, mating occurs, after which the female eats the “suitor”. Having laid up to 130 eggs in prepared cocoons, she hides them in lairs (mouse holes, crevices) entwined with dense cobwebs and dies. Spiders appear in September and live in a cocoon until April, eating each other. With the onset of stable heat, they go outside.
As for the species of black widows, spiders that were born in September spend the winter with them. In a warm cocoon left by a caring spider mother, they sleep until April. Spreading in search of habitats, they have arachnoid and venom-carrying apparatus. During mating at the end of June, the female karakurt eats the male. After laying eggs it dies.
Domestic arthropods may go into torpor with the onset of winter if the number of indoor parasites decreases sharply. Waking up before the onset of spring, they can feed on their relatives.
Rare species live in burrows and crevices
Predatory arthropods, whose life cycle exceeds a year, fall into torpor with the onset of cold weather. Species such as tarantulas live in the wild for 5 to 10 years. Helping them survive is the ability to go without food for a long time and the mild climate in their habitats. With the onset of cold weather, they burrow into their vertical burrows and hibernate until spring.
The edge hunter has a life expectancy of 2 years, until the age of mating. After breeding, they die in August. Immature individuals spend two winters in the mother's cocoon, attached to the grass on the shore, in a state of torpor.
Silverback spiders build their winter cocoons underwater
During the cold season, when rivers and lakes are frozen, the silverfish prepares winter housing. The spider controls the volume of the bell and the oxygen content in it. The air supply in such a cocoon is enough for 4-5 months. Nearby, the silverfish weaves the second and third mesh networks and fills them with air. This insurance allows you to overwinter without rising to the surface until warm days arrive.
Hiding in a mollusk shell
If there is no algae and nowhere to go, the water spider can use an abandoned mollusk shell instead of a cocoon. He fills it with air bubbles from the surface and covers it with thick nets instead of curtains. Such a house serves as reliable protection from large fish and crayfish.
They overwinter with young offspring (the female is eaten in the spring)
The black fathead spends its winter in a special way. With the onset of autumn, the mating period approaches, and the males go in search of females. Having carried out the necessary fertilization ritual, the male remains to live in the same burrow with the female. The fathead spider makes a cocoon for its offspring, where it soon lays eggs.
For 2 months, spiders guard the clutch in a cocoon. With the onset of spring, spiders appear. Spiders serve as food for them. By the end of summer there are 3 molts. Young spiders crawl out of their holes to find a home. After 2 moults they will become sexually mature and will look for a female. A male spider, whose life cycle is less than a year, dies by this time.
Predator's net
When hearing the word “spider,” a person immediately imagines an openwork web or dense snares. The spider weaves a web using a solidifying liquid substance found in the arachnoid glands located inside the abdomen. A sticky mass is released from arachnoid warts. The threads of the web woven by a spider are thin webs glued together from several different glands.
Spiders use webs:
- for catching prey;
- for creating a cocoon around the masonry;
- burrowing spiders line their dug-out dwellings with soft webs;
- In the autumn, young spiders use long threads from the web for migration.
What do they eat in winter?
Most spiders cannot eat their food right away. The venomous bite is necessary to paralyze the victim and turn its insides into a nutritional cocktail. The peculiarity of spider physiology does not require maintaining a constant temperature. For this reason, they can go without food for a long time and fall asleep, falling into torpor. During the winter months, the food supply is maintained by water and house spiders.
What do house spiders eat in an apartment in winter? Flies and mosquitoes stop penetrating into human housing with the onset of cold weather, going into hibernation. But apartments can be inhabited by cockroaches, moths, and fruit flies. Predators eat each other, thus redistributing habitat areas. The life cycle of house spiders is short: from 2 to 6 months. Reproduction depends on the food supply: if it is insufficient, new offspring appear after the end of the life cycle of the parents.
Requirements for setting up a terrarium for a tarantula
— the terrarium should provide space for the spiders. The surface of the walls for arboreal species and the surface of the bottom for terrestrial ones should be no shorter than 2 times the span of the spider's legs in maximum amplitude. At the same time, the excessive space of the terrarium creates difficulties in constantly maintaining optimal temperature and humidity; in such a terrarium it is difficult for spiders to find food. - the terrarium must be safe - for the owners and for the spider itself. The possibility of escape must be completely eliminated, and the possibility of a spider bite and attack must also be minimized. You may find it helpful to read about the Poecilotheria fasciata bite. — containers with a high height cannot be used for ground spiders, because the tarantula can fall from a height and get a ruptured abdomen. For arboreal spider species, the height of the terrarium is an important component of success in keeping them. Large stones should not be placed near such spiders to prevent spider strikes and subsequent damage. — a good ventilation system is necessary for all types of terrariums. — as a shelter for terrestrial tarantulas, you need to install in the terrarium either a piece of bark, or half of a flower pot, or some kind of artificial shelter. For tree spiders, a shelter in a terrarium can be built from a piece of pine or oak bark. By and large, tarantula spiders do not necessarily need to be kept in terrariums; any food containers or standard insect boxes are suitable for them. The main thing is that these containers must meet the above conditions. And newborn baby spiders feel great in small plastic boxes, such as those made for photographic film, with small-diameter holes on the lid and sides. As the spider grows, it is transplanted into larger jars.
Types of web
There are several types of different webs in the world. They are:
- Round . The most common. It has a minimum number of threads. Because of this weaving, it is hardly noticeable, but it is not perfectly elastic every time. Radical threads-webs emanate from its center, which are connected by spirals with a sticky base.
- Cone-shaped . Basically, the funnel spider weaves it in tall grass, and, waiting for prey, it hides in its narrow base.
- Zigzag.
- Gigantic . Its dimensions vary from 900 to 28 thousand square centimeters.
Use of insecticides
Some drugs can be dangerous to human health, but at the same time effective in the fight against arachnids. They should be used following the exact dosage. It is important to follow the instructions carefully. These products are the highest quality and most effective:
- Spray Raid. Kills arachnids on direct contact. People and their pets must leave the apartment while using the spray.
- Aerosol Raptor. It is not harmful to humans, but has an intense minty odor that repels arthropods.
- Aerosol Bros. Contains active components that affect pests. After using this aerosol, they will not appear in your home for several months.
- Spray Joker Bun. They should be used to process baseboards, window openings, and attic corners according to the instructions.
- Trap tablets. They are placed in the corners of the room, as they destroy pests by luring spiders with their smell.
- Neoron. Not recommended for use in the kitchen area; please read the instructions in detail before use.
- Wallpaper glue, paint. They contain synthetic components that can repel arthropods.
- Butox 50. Before using it, you must close the windows and doors. After finishing the treatment, ventilate the room.
Under natural conditions, arachnids live in natural landscapes, settling on trees, plants, grass and soil. But when there is not enough food, they can climb into human habitation.
Other arachnids
Central Asia and Africa are home to large arthropods, which are unknowingly confused with spiders. In fact, these are salpugs or, as they are also called, camel spiders. Unlike spiders, these living creatures do not have poisonous glands or glands for creating webs, but they are armed with teeth.
Spiders cause a feeling of fear in many people, but this is more likely due to ignorance. In fact, these are quite harmless living creatures.
Preventive measures
As a rule, such events do not require any special expenditure of time or money, but they have a noticeable effect if everything is done on an ongoing basis, not forgetting that breaks in events are necessarily used by insects to “populate” an apartment or house
This is especially important for those who do not want to put up with an unpleasant neighborhood
Therefore, the first thing to do is to take care of the cleanliness and order of your home. A mess always attracts various kinds of insects and not just spiders. And here you should always remember not that spiders may appear in the apartment, but that food for spiders does not appear in the apartment. If it is not there, then one spider may settle in the home, which will make sure that some pest does not appear here. If 1-2 spiders settle in an apartment, then, as a rule, they are invisible to the owners, since they do not annoy the residents, like other pests that do not mind profiting from leftover food, and maybe even food supplies.
External structure
External structure of a spider
Spiders are heterosexual, and in most species the males are smaller than the females. This is due to the fact that when creating offspring of a female, it is then easier to eat the partner and produce more cubs. At the back are the warts, from which the warts stand out.
Body
The body consists of a cephalothorax covered with chitin, a hard exoskeleton. During its life, it can be updated up to 10 times, and the old one is reset only after a new one is formed under it.
Limbs
Spiders have four pairs of legs covered with small hairs.
There are also two pedipalps on the body, which are responsible for the sense of smell. Next to the jaws there are also chelicerae, with the help of which the predator injects poison into the prey. Interesting fact : thanks to the hairs on its limbs, the spider senses the direction of the wind and orients itself in space.
Color
The main components that determine the spider's color are bilin and guanine. They add brown and white to the body respectively. Also, other shades appear due to the light reflection characteristics of the hairs on the body.
Ways to fight
It doesn't really matter where the arachnids come from. It is much more important to understand effective ways to combat them. The key to getting rid of arthropods is to keep it clean. What cleaning should include:
- Daily ventilation. Drafts are the main enemy of arachnids.
- Timely destruction of nests with eggs, removal of cobwebs using a vacuum cleaner without an attachment or a mop. Particular attention should be paid to hard-to-reach areas located under the ceiling and behind the cabinet.
- Cleaning dust from carpets and furniture. Cleaning should be systematic.
- Seal all cracks in the wall with gypsum mortar, as spiders crawl into the house through them.
- Prevention of dampness. It can attract not only arthropods, but also various types of harmful insects.
- Fighting moths. Moths are a favorite prey for spiders, so you should get rid of them.
- Periodic cleaning of basements and attics.
Some people are sure that by removing the web you can get rid of the spider. However, this is not so, because the arthropod easily weaves a new network.
Internal structure
Internal structure of a spider
Spiders have a complex internal structure, and several systems continuously function in their bodies.
central nervous system
Consists of the nervous system and brain. The latter is a collection of ganglia. It is responsible for the functioning of the eyes and perception of the environment. The spider's brain is developed enough to analyze and act not only on instincts, but also on existing experience.
Circulatory system
This system is not closed. The heart is located inside the abdominal cavity; the role of its valves is performed by stomata, which close during pulsations. The circulatory system runs through the entire body and into the limbs.
Digestive system
In the process of eating food, the spider's digestive system begins to work. When a predator pulls fluid from its prey, it ends up in the foregut. In it, part of the liquid is absorbed into the walls, and the rest is transported to the stomach. Spiders also have a liver, which is responsible for breaking down food particles.
