Spiders

How much do you know about creepy and crawly spiders?

Every few months, almost like clockwork, a media hype about these arachnids surfaces in the press. But we rarely find a balanced story about deadly spiders. Just how toxic are they, really?

Wandering around the windowsills and kitchen floors of New England is a common spider with a surprisingly nasty bite.

Sure, they look creepy, but spiders aren't as spooky as you might think.

Spiders — whether you abhor them or adore them, you certainly can't ignore them. We asked our readers to send us their coolest arachnid photos, and they happily obliged.

Entomologist Piotr Naskrecki was taking a nighttime walk in the rainforest in Guyana, when he came across a "Goliath birdeater," possibly the world's largest spider.

Imagine a spider as big as a child's forearm that weighs as much as a puppy. That's how huge the South American Goliath birdeater — arguably the world's largest spider — can be.

Claims that a woman in England found deadly spider eggs on her bananas might be bogus.

Find yourself thinking that the spider living in your garden is the biggest you’ve ever seen? You could be right.

Perhaps even creepier than spiders are city spiders. New research has found the humped golden orb-weaving spider grows larger and produces more eight-legged babies in urban areas.

The gait of a 410-million-year-old precursor to spiders has been recreated based on fossilized specimens.

Many animals camouflage themselves to avoid being eaten by predators, but few are as strange as a spider that disguises itself as bird poop.

Orb-web spiders use their body color and web decorations to masquerade as bird droppings to avoid predators.

A spider's fangs are natural injection needles, making them perfectly suited for piercing the skeletons of their prey and delivering a kiss of venom.