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The Only Spider That Lives Underwater (Plus How It Survives)
Horrors from the deep
Spiders are known for being terrestrial bugs that make webs in bushes and trees. They walk around yards at dusk. Spiders are not known for being aquatic animals. However, there is one spider that manages to live underwater while the rest of their cohort live on land. The diving bell spider is the only spider known to live almost entirely underwater. These spiders don’t breathe water; they breathe air, so how do they do it?
The diving bell spider gets its name from the fact that it builds a special kind of web around itself in the water that resembles a diving bell. This web forms a bubble around the spider, which traps air, allowing it to breathe underwater. The spider uses a special web combined with tiny hairs all over its body to capture tiny air bubbles that coalesce around the spider to form the protective bubble that is necessary for it to survive.
An Underwater Arachnid
The diving bell spider (Argyroneta aquatica) lives almost entirely underwater. It does everything underwater. The spider sleeps, hunts, lays eggs, eats, mates, and hibernates all while underwater. These characteristics make the diving bell spider completely unique among other arachnids.
The diving bell spider only surfaces briefly to resupply its air bubble. Occasionally, these spiders will bring large prey to the surface to eat it. The diving bell spider hunts other small creatures that it finds in its habitat. Diving bell spiders hunt other aquatic bugs, larvae, and plankton.
The diving bell spider inhabits lakes, ponds, canals, marshes, flooded areas, and streams in Europe and Asia.
These spiders are able to enlarge or shrink their diving bell bubble to meet oxygen demands. The larger the spider, the larger the bubble they can create and maintain. Like most spiders, females are considerably bigger, and therefore, they create much larger diving bells around themselves. These spiders can even tailor the oxygen level in the bubble to equalize with the surrounding water. Some aquatic environments are more oxygen rich than others. In areas where the water has less oxygen, the spiders are able to live with less oxygen in their bubble.
