![]() The trapdoor spider is a fascinating creature that lives in burrows or “trapdoors” on the ground, and they are often found in grasslands and fields. Their Bite is very weak and not dangerous. The Trapdoor Spider has venom that is not considered dangerous to humans. The burrow spider is different from other spiders in that it doesn’t spin a web to catch its prey as most species do, but instead digs or finds an available rodent hole and then waits at the opening for some unsuspecting insect to get close enough so that he can ambush them with his sticky feet (burrowing How Venomous is the Bite of a Trapdoor Spider? Burrow spiders don’t build webs but rather dig and live in their burrows which they construct out of silk. They are most commonly seen between July to October where they will eat grasshoppers, beetles, and things like that as well as other spiders (including black widows). The burrow spider is a mostly nocturnal arachnid found in the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and Australia. ![]() ![]() What is a Burrow Spider (Ground Dwelling) ? They spend most of their time hidden inside their burrow where they wait for prey to come by. Trapdoor spiders are typically brown or black with a patterned abdomen, but some species of trapdoor spiders may be brightly colored as well. Many more quantitative investigations on the natural diets of tropical spiders are needed before reliable conclusions on the importance of frogs as spider food can be drawn.The trapdoor spider is a fascinating creature that lives in burrows or “trapdoors” on the ground, and they are often found in grasslands and fields. Studies from Australia and South America indicate that frogs might be a substantial component in the diet of some mygalomorph spiders (i.e., families Atracidae, Idiopidae, and Theraphosidae). The utilization of frogs as supplementary food increases the spiders’ food supply (i.e., large diet breadth), and this is presumed to enhance their chance of survival. Our finding that such a high diversity of spider taxa is utilizing such a high variety of frog taxa as prey is novel. Altogether >200 frog species from 32 families (including several species of bitter tasting dart-poison frogs) have been documented to be hunted by >100 spider species from 22 families. The frog-catching spiders are predominantly nocturnal with an average body length of 2.24 ± 0.12 cm (usually ≈0.1–2.7 g body mass). The majority (85%) of the 374 reported incidents of frog predation were attributable to web-less hunting spiders (in particular from the superfamilies Ctenoidea and Lycosoidea) which kill frogs by injection of powerful neurotoxins. All stages of the frogs’ life cycle (eggs/embryos, hatchlings, tadpoles, emerging metamorphs, immature post-metamorphs, adults) are vulnerable to spider predation. ![]() The captured frogs are predominantly small-sized with an average body length of 2.76 ± 0.13 cm (usually ≈0.2–3.8 g body mass). Frog predation by spiders has been most frequently documented in the Neotropics, with particular concentration in the Central American and Amazon rain forests and the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Frog-catching spiders have been documented from all continents except for Antarctica (>80% of the incidents occurring in the warmer areas between latitude 30° N and 30° S). In this paper, 374 incidents of frog predation by spiders are reported based on a comprehensive global literature and social media survey.
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