Spitting spider

Spitting spiders (Scytodidae)

Spitting spider (Scytodes thoracica)

Web: the Spitting spider doesn’t make a catching web, but stalks its prey (flies, mosquitoes) on walls and spits a mixture of sticky silk and poison in a zigzag pattern over the prey. The threadlike adhesive shrinks, pinning the prey to the surface.   

Habitat: almost exclusively indoors. In summer sometimes on the outside of houses and one very strange find of a Spitting spider underneath a tussock in a field during winter (!).

How to recognize:

• typical colour pattern of dark stripes and dots on an orange/light brown/grey or beige background colour.
• cephalothorax is often as big as the abdomen and has a characteristic shape with a flattened front.

Looks similar to:

• the Spitting spider has a very characteristic appearance and is almost impossible to confuse with other species.

Size

♀: 4-6 mm

♂: 3-5 mm

When?

♀: throughout the year

♂: throughout the year