If you are looking for spiders indoors then you will be able to find them all year round. If looking outside then they will be found round about spring, summer and autumn. The places where you could find spiders are in webs, on plants, bushes, under stones, bricks or wood, grass, around drainpipes, cracks and walls. Webs are easiest to see in the morning when they are covered in dew.
Parts of a spider
Legs
A spider has eight legs, they are very long and very hairy. If a young spider loses a leg it will eventually grow another one. When it grows another one it is smaller than the rest but when it sheds its skin its leg grows the same size as the rest.
Eyes
Most spiders have eight eyes. Spiders eyes are very small which makes them difficult to see. Spiders who build webs can not see as well as the spiders who hunt and jump. This is so because hunting and jumping spiders have bigger eyes which allow them to see up to thirty centimetres.
Spinnerets.
Different kind of spiders have different kinds of spinnerets. Garden spider's spinnerets look like small bumps and house spider's spinnerets stick out like tubes. Spiders spin silk from their spinnerets. The silk comes out as a liquid, but as soon as it contacts the air it becomes solid.
Body
The spiders body has two parts. The abdomen (which is the big part at the back) holds all the silk glands or tiny hairs. These hairs are not all the same. A spider can sense things with it. The part of a spider which is hairiest is the part that is the most sensitive.
Pedipalps.
The pedipalps look like a pair of short legs which are beside the spider's mouth parts.
Mouth Parts
Spiders have a huge pair of jaws, tipped by pointed fangs. Spiders are predators. That means they hunt, kill and eat other animals. When a spider has caught something to eat, it bites it. The fangs squirt poison which paralyses the prey. A spider doesn't eat its prey at once. It wraps it in silk and saves it for later. When it is hungry, it pours out juices from its mouth (like our spit) into the prey. These juices turn the insides into liquid, and then the spider sucks up the juices from the prey. Spiders use their jaws for other things apart from eating. Garden Spiders sometimes need to make a new web - and so they don't waste anything they, eat the old one.
Spiders Through The Year
Different kinds of spiders have very different life cycles. This is the one of the garden spider.
An adult male spider makes a silk pad and squirts a little bit of sperm on it. He doesn't eat anything ; he doesn't spin a web; he only has one job, to find a female.The male spider must be very careful because if he doesn't approach the female in the right way she may attack him and even kill him. He signals her by drumming out a special rhythmn on her web. If the female is attracted by the male's behaviour, she shows this by pulling her legs in close to her body. Then the male can quickly dash in and push his sperm into her sperm store, which is under her abdomen. If he can he makes a quick exit,because if he doesn't she is likely to kill him. He will die very soon after mating.When the female is ready to lay her eggs, she spins a silk cushion and lays about 200 eggs on it. She covers them with silk threads, making a cocoon or pupa which will protect them from being eaten when she is not there. The female spider dies soon after laying her eggs. The eggs stay protected inside their cocoon all through the winter time. In the late spring, garden spiders' eggs hatch. Out of each egg comes a little spiderling. They eat their egg casesbut they stay inside their cocoon for about a week. Then they come out and, and wait together for a breeze. When the right kind of breeze comes, they turn their abdomens towards the sky and let out a very long line of silk. The wind catches the silk, and carries each spiderling through the air to the new place where it can start its own, new life. The young spider spins a web, and starts catching insects (such as flies) to eat. It eats and eats until its skin splits. Underneath its skin is a new, damp, softer skin. The spider wriggles out of its old skin, and swells up before the new skin dries and hardens. This process is called moulting. It is the only way a young spider can grow. Young spiders moult many times during the summer. By autumn time they are about 4 or 5mm long. When the cold weather comes , they find a safe place under leaves or bark to hibernate in during the cold winter. In the late spring, young garden spiders wake up from hibernation. They spin webs, and start catching other insects to eat. The spiders eat and grow all through the summer. Finally they are ready to mate.
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