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Sticker of Golden silk orb-weaver
Bug card No. 0631 of 1,500

Golden silk orb-weaver

Trichonephila clavipes
Name means: “club-footed, after the fluffy tufts of hair on the female's legs”
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersForests and woods8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The golden silk orb-weaver is a big spider that spins webs out of shiny golden silk. The female has a long orange-brown body with little yellow spots and stripy legs with fluffy black tufts. Its huge round webs hang between trees and bushes in the woods.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
From the southern United States down to Argentina, in forests and woods
Length
0.6 to 4 cm (0.24 to 1.6 in)
females are much bigger than males
Top speed
about 2.4 km/h (1.5 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless

Watch out! Read all about it on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
It catches flying insects in its golden web.
For real!Photo of Golden silk orb-weaver
Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Golden silk orb-weaver about 4 cm long (1.6 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 7 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 1.5 seconds

How big is Golden silk orb-weaver compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It can make seven different kinds of silk, each for a different job.

2

The male is tiny. A big female can weigh 30 to 70 times more than him.

3

The female is one of the biggest spiders in North America that is not a tarantula.

4

Scientists study its silk because it might one day help doctors repair nerves.

5

Hikers in the woods sometimes walk right into its big webs.

you asked

Most asked questions about Golden silk orb-weaver

?Why is its web golden?

Its silk really has a golden colour. That is how the spider got its name.

?How big is a golden silk orb-weaver?

Females are about 2.4 to 4 centimetres long. Males are much smaller, only about 6 millimetres.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Trichonephila clavipes
Named by
Linnaeus, 1767
Group
Spiders
Family
Araneidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Araneidae
Lives on
North America, South America
Also known as
Golden silk spider, Golden orb weaver spider, Banana spider

Where the facts come from

  1. Trichonephila clavipes (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Charles J. Sharp. 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.

More from the same group: Spiders

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Also at home here: Forests and woods

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