''Arachnura higginsi'', known as the tailed spider or scorpion tailed spider and the scorpion orb weaver, is a common

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

spider belonging to the family

Araneidae Orb-weaver spiders are members of the spider family Araneidae. They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields, and forests. The English word "orb" can mean "circular", hence the English name ...

. It occurs in many parts of Australia.

Description and habit

The body length of the female is around 16 mm with the male being much smaller at around 2 mm. Body colour varies between individuals and may range from cream through brown to black, sometimes with a brightly coloured yellow to red patch on the top of the

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the gut, belly, tummy, midriff, tucky, or stomach) is the front part of the torso between the thorax (chest) and pelvis in humans and in other vertebrates. The area occupied by the abdomen is called the abdominal ...

. Juveniles may be more brightly coloured. Only the females possess a tail and this increases in length with each

moult In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at ...

. The prominent tail looks somewhat similar to that of a

scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward cur ...

but has no sting and the spider is not considered to be dangerous to humans. The spider's

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

is usually located close to the ground, and may be oriented vertically, on an angle, or sometimes horizontally. The spider's usual prey consists of small flying insects. The female deposits between 50 and 60 eggs in an

egg sac Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

, of which there may be as many as eight distributed across missing sectors of the web. The sacs are oval in shape, 5 mm x 4 mm of tough, brown silk with a woolly appearance. The eggs are creamy in colour, 0.8mm in diameter, and not sticky.

References

* Australian Spiders in Colour - Ramon Mascord 1970 SBN 589 07065 7 * (2009)
The world spider catalog
version 9.5. ''American Museum of Natural History''. Araneidae Spiders of Australia Spiders described in 1872 {{Araneidae-stub A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia- Robert Whyte and Greg Anderson. 2017 SBN 9780643107076 CSIRO Publishing