6 April 2023
Mesothelean spiders diverged from all other spiders long before the first dinosaurs – three species of these living fossils have just been identified in western Hunan province
13 March 2023
Black widow spiders are waning in the southern US and brown widows may be the culprit – in lab tests, they were more than six times as likely to kill southern black widows than other arachnids they were offered
12 October 2022
When researchers take away a black widow’s prey, the spider can remember how large the prey was and where it was in the web, and it will search harder for larger missing grubs
19 September 2022
High-speed cameras have revealed the extraordinary hunting technique of the Australian ant-slayer spider, which is highly successful and thought to be unique
25 April 2022
For the first time, spiders have been observed escaping sexual cannibalism by flinging themselves away from females, reaching speeds of up to 88.2 centimetres per second
7 March 2022
Some spider species that live in groups of thousands on enormous webs synchronise their movements to catch insects up to 700 times heavier than an individual spider
11 February 2022
The bridge spider (Larinioides sclopetarius) uses its web to detect the sounds made by insects flying nearby and prepare itself for a potential meal
3 November 2021
Chemicals in the silk of male nursery web spiders help them attract a mate when used as gift wrap
14 September 2021
Modern spiders are known to be devoted parents, and ancient spiders trapped in 99-million-year-old amber seem to have cared for their young too
18 May 2021
Fire ants leave a chemical residue in their wake that deters spiders – and that may help inspire eco-friendly spider repellents for the home
