Cardinal spider
The cardinal spider is a big reddish brown spider with very long legs. It is the largest spider that comes from Britain. It likes to live inside old buildings and walls, in quiet corners.
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Fun facts
Its legs can be up to three times longer than its body.
A female can live up to eight years.
Its name comes from a story about Cardinal Wolsey, an important man who lived at Hampton Court long ago. Some say he was scared of these spiders, others say he thought they brought luck.
The young spiders are much paler than the grown-ups.
Most asked questions about Cardinal spider
?How big is the cardinal spider?
Females grow up to about 2 centimetres long, and their legs can be three times longer than that.
?Where does the cardinal spider live?
Mostly inside buildings and old walls.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Tegenaria parietina
- Named by
- Fourcroy, 1785
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Agelenidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Agelenidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, North America
Where the facts come from
- Tegenaria parietina (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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