Young children, the elderly and hypersensitive individuals are most likely to react strongly to a bite. Biology Spiders are arachnids, not insects. Unlike insects, which have three main body sections and six legs, spiders have two body sections and eight legs. The eyes, mouthparts and legs are found on the front section of the body, known as the cephalothorax. The second section, the abdomen, bears the openings for breathing, the digestive and reproductive systems, and the external organs used for spinning silk or webbing.
Female spiders wrap their eggs in a silken spun sac.
Some species carry this egg sac, while others deposit it somewhere within their nest. The number of species of spiders found in North Carolina that can inflect serious and painful injury is extremely small. The two best-known dangerously poisonous spiders are the black widow spider and the brown recluse. The black widow spider, Lactrodectus mactans , is probably the most widely recognized of the dangerously poisonous spiders found in North Carolina. These marks may remain visible on adults.