[music]
Hi guys! We just came across this spiderweb! Look how pretty it is!
You might know some kids or adults that get kind of nervous or even afraid around spiders
In fact, one of our four-year-old viewers is kind of afraid of spiders, too. But she knew exactly what to do!
She wrote us and said "I want to learn about scary spiders so that I'm not afraid of them anymore"
That's a great attitude! Knowledge is power, so let's all see what we can discover about spiders
One thing that you should know is that spiders have a really important job to do:
they eat lots of small, little insects like mosquitoes, gnats, and house flies
So if spiders weren't around to do their jobs, then there would be a lot more of these pesky insects around
Speaking of insects, some people think that spiders are a kind of insect. But that's not true.
You might remember how you can tell an insect from other kinds of animals:
insects have six legs, and they have three main body parts: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen
Plus, they sometimes have other body parts too, like wings to help them fly around and antenna to sense their surroundings
Now spiders are different in a lot of ways. For one thing, they only have two body parts: they have an abdomen,
but instead of having a head and a thorax, they have just one other body part with the two put together called a 'cephalothorax'
And maybe the easiest way to spot a spider is that they always have eight legs and they don't have wings or antennas
Here's another fun fact about spiders: spiders have different kinds of eyes than insects do
Insects have really complicated eyes called 'compound eyes'
They're made up of thousands of little lenses that work together so the insect can see
But spiders have simple eyes with just one lens, just like you and I do! So you actually have something in common with spiders!
But if you've ever seen a picture of a spider up close, you might have noticed that spiders have more than two eyes. Most of them have eight eyes
One kind of eight-eyed spider is called the jumping spider
These spiders have some of the best vision of any spider in the world
Their eight eyes make them able to see almost the whole way around their bodies
But jumping spiders do something else very well, too. And I bet you can guess what it is
They jump! some of these fires can jump up to 50 times the length of their own bodies
If you could do that, you'd be able to jump over 12 cars in a single leap
But these spiders are careful jumpers. They always stick a piece of silk called a 'drag line'
to whatever they're jumping from, so if they happen to miss what they're jumping for, they won't fall. Clever spiders!
Jumping spiders are quite smart and really kind of cute, but they don't do something that lots of other spiders do: they don't spin fancy webs
For the most beautiful webs around, you should keep an eye out for spiders known as orb weavers
The word 'orb' means round and that's the shape we see in an orb Weaver's web: a nice pretty circle
The silk that orb weavers and other spiders use to make their webs comes from special body parts called 'spinnerets'
most spiders have six of these spinnerets and they use them to spin different kinds of silk
Each kind is for different job. Some of the silk that orb weavers use is sticky, so when an insect flies into its web it gets caught in these threads
But orb weavers also make a silk that isn't sticky
When they want to walk around on their own webs, they keep their eight feet on those special threads
Then the spider can get to its prey and wrap it up in another kind of silk until it's ready to eat it
Now that you know more about them, we hope you feel better about our friends the spiders
so the next time you see a spider, take a few minutes to watch it so you can learn more about it
You can also learn more by reading books and, of course, asking questions!
Thanks for joining me on SciShow Kids! You're always welcome to ask us about anything that's on your mind!
Just get your parents help and leave a comment below or email us at kids@thescishow.com
And we'll see you next time!
[music]