Six-spotted fishing spider
The six-spotted fishing spider is a big grey brown spider that can run on top of the water. It has a pale stripe along each side and light spots on its back. It got its name from the six dark spots underneath its body, which you only see from below.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Six-spotted fishing spider compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It can catch fish up to five times bigger than its own body.
It is one of only a few spiders known to eat animals with backbones, like fish and frogs.
It hunts in the daytime and can wait patiently for hours until something moves on the water.
With her legs spread out, a big female is about 6 centimetres across.
People call it the dock spider, because it often zips away into the cracks of boat docks.
Most asked questions about Six-spotted fishing spider
?Can a fishing spider really catch fish?
Yes. It can catch small fish, tadpoles and frogs, even fish up to five times its own size.
?Can spiders walk on water?
The six-spotted fishing spider can. It scampers across the surface of ponds and lakes.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dolomedes triton
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Dolomedidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Dolomedidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Dock spider
Where the facts come from
- Six-spotted fishing 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 JeffreyGammon. CC BY 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.
European garden spider
Goliath birdeater
Brown recluse
Redback spider
Yellow garden spider
Bold jumping spider
Violet dropwing
Palamedes swallowtail
Tongue-eating louse
Bladder snail
Giant water bug
Channeled apple snail