#4398 · 🕷️ spiders & kin
Five-spotted star-web spider
Uroctea durandi
📍 Rivière-sur-Tarn, France
📍 Rouet, France
📍 Santandreu de la Castanya, 08559 Brull, Barcelona, Spagna
📍 Coimbra, PT
10 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
- 1. © Manuel Raab · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 2. © Manuel Raab · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 3. © Ludivine Lamare · CC BY 4.0
- 4. © Ivan L. F. Magalhaes · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 5. © Chris Harold · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 6. © Pascal Dubois · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 7. Rivière-sur-Tarn, France:© Jérémie Février · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 8. Rouet, France:© Julien Tchilinguirian · CC BY 4.0
- 9. Santandreu de la Castanya, 08559 Brull, Barcelona, Spagna:© Mattia Menchetti · CC BY 4.0
- 10. Coimbra, PT:© melster · CC BY-ND 4.0
what is it?
Uroctea durandi is a Mediterranean spider of about 16mm, dark with five yellow spots on its back. It lives under rocks, where it constructs an upside-down tent-like hanging web about 4 cm in diameter. From each of the six openings two signaling threads protrude; When an insect or millipede touches one of these threads, the spider lunges out of the respective opening and catches its prey.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
- 1,317 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Pierre André Latreille in 1809 (217 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Five-spotted star-web spider
- scientific name
- Uroctea durandi
- class
- Arachnida
- order
- Araneae
- family
- Oecobiidae
- sightings in NL
- 0
- sightings in Europe
- 1,162
- sightings worldwide
- 1,317
- GBIF records in NL
- 1
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1809 by Pierre André Latreille
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 213088, Wikidata Q145988, GBIF 2162464, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.