Bug card No. 1179 of 1,500

Rufous net-casting spider

Deinopis subrufa

Name means: “subrufa is Latin for reddish”

Eats: Other bugs and small animals SpidersForests and woods8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

At night it holds a little stretchy silk net and throws it over insects that walk or fly past. It can be fawn, pinkish brown or chocolate brown.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!

Lives in

Eastern Australia and New Zealand, in forests, woodlands and heaths

Length

2.2 to 2.5 cm (0.87 to 0.98 in)

females are a little bigger than males

Top speed

about 1.9 km/h (1.2 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

What does it eat?

It catches ants, beetles, crickets and even other spiders in its net.

How big is it?

as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 1.9 secondsmoves 21 times its own body length every second

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

Rufous net-casting spider about 1.9 km/h (1.2 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

cool stuff

It hunts at night and has excellent eyesight in the dark.

The mother makes a round egg sac about 1 centimetre wide with 100 to 200 eggs inside.

She hides the egg sac with a leaf, and the babies hatch after about three weeks.

A boy gently plucks the girl's web to tell her he is there.

Sometimes you can find it on the outside walls of houses.

Asianopis subrufa (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 Aussiegall. CC BY 2.0, 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.