Field Guide To House & Garden Spiders

The FSC Spiders fold-out guide features 40 common species found in buildings and gardens.

The guide features beautiful full colour illustrations of each spider, sorted by habitat, so you can quickly narrow down the choices. Use this guide to hunt for spiders in low bushes and vegetation, in flower heads, on outside walls and fences, in leaf litter and under stones, and even inside buildings.

The reverse side of the Spiders guide includes concise identification notes for each species. This text covers the key characters to look out for, plus house/garden habitat and web shape or hunting strategy. Even if you cannot find the spider that made it, webs are a useful clue. Also included are line drawings that show a range of webs, including orb webs, sheet webs and tube webs.

Spiders are invertebrates, that is animals without backbones. They are not insects, but part of the class Arachnida. Apart from spiders, other arachnids include harvestmen, false scorpions and mites. With eight legs and two distinct body parts, spiders are easy to distinguish from the insects. In addition, all spiders can produce silk, using special body features called spinnerets.

Unlike insects, young spiders hatch directly from eggs. They look like miniature forms of the adults.