Throughout recorded history, spiders generally have been regarded as creeping, crawling, loathsome creatures that one should avoid. Although some may be a threat to human well-being, spiders as a group are generally beneficial to humans. Spiders belong to the order Araneae of the class Arachnida. They are most closely related to daddy longlegs, scorpions, ticks and mites. Spiders are characterized by a body composed of two regions called the cephalothorax and the abdomen, eight legs attached to the cephalothorax, and either four, six or eight simple eyes located on the front edge of this body region.
All spiders are predators.
Their prey may be insects, other arachnids, or other small organisms. They are equipped with a pair of fanglike chelicerae connected by tiny channels to venom-producing glands. This venom is injected into the prey at time of capture. It usually paralyzes rather than kills the prey. The tip of the abdomen is equipped with a series of variously shaped projections called spinnerets, which produce the spider's silk.