Social Spider (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A social spider is a spider species whose individuals form relatively long-lasting aggregations. Whereas most spiders are solitary and even aggressive toward conspecifics, some hundreds of species in several families show a tendency to live in groups, often referred to as colonies, and continue to provoke the curiosity of naturalists.No social spider species has yet been seen to exhibit the eusocial organization of termites, ants, highly social bees or social wasps. Social spiders are more prominent in tropical regions, where large insects are more plentiful. The reason is that net area is maximized by dispersed solitary spiders, while colonies with a maze of nets are capable of capturing larger prey. Colony size tends to approximately maximize total biomass capture per spider.