Kauai cave wolf spider
The Kauai cave wolf spider lives in total darkness, deep inside a few lava caves on one Hawaiian island. It has no eyes at all, because in the dark it does not need them. It is reddish brown with bright orange legs, and it is one of the rarest spiders in the world.
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Fun facts
It is the only wolf spider in the world with no eyes at all. Its relatives living outside have big eyes.
It finds food by feeling tiny shakes in the ground and by smelling, then it creeps closer, lifting its front legs one after the other.
The mother carries her eggs around, and when the babies hatch they ride on her back for a few days, holding on with tiny comb-like claws.
It lays only 15 to 30 eggs, while other wolf spiders can lay 100 to 300.
It needs very damp air. If the cave gets dry, it can die, so it is protected as an endangered animal.
Most asked questions about Kauai cave wolf spider
?Why does the Kauai cave wolf spider have no eyes?
It lives in total darkness in caves, where eyes are no use, so over a very long time it lost them.
?How rare is the Kauai cave wolf spider?
Very rare. It lives in only a few caves on one island, and nobody has ever counted more than 30 at once.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Adelocosa anops
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Lycosidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Lycosidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Blind spider
Where the facts come from
- Kauaʻi cave wolf spider (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 Gordon Smith. Public domain, 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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