Key Facts:
Sizes:
Length: About 1 in.
Mouthparts: Pair of downward pointing poison fangs for piercing, crushing, and digging
Eyes: 4 pairs of simple eyes

Breeding:
Breeding season: Summer in temperate regions; year round in the tropics
Eggs: Laid in burrow. Number varies according to species

Lifestyle:
Habit: Stays in burrow by day and ambushes prey from burrow by night
Diet: insects and other invertebrates
Lifespan: Normally 1-2 years
Related Species: Include the European purse web spider and the funnel web spider.
Distribution: Various species are found throughout the world, in the warm climates of tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate regions.

Burrows of Trapdoor Spiders: Trapdoor spiders use their burrows to conceal themselves when hunting prey. The burrows also serve as protection against enemies and as nests in which to raise young.

Burrow: Built in a variety of shapes. The simplest is a tubelike tunnel. It may be up to 1 foot deep and 1½ inches in diameter.

Hunting: The spider waits for its prey at the mouth of the burrow. It stays hidden beneath the trapdoor.

Prey: When an insect passes by, the spider opens the door, seizes and poisons its prey, and drags it into the burrow.

Did You Know: A female trapdoor spider may spend her whole life inside her burrow, enlarging it as she grows.
Trapdoor spiders can move up to 140 times their own weight.
In arid areas trapdoor spiders often build burrows under a tree to snare insects attracted to the tree’s moisture.
Some Australian trapdoor spiders build walls around burrow entrances as protection against flooding.

The spider strikes so quickly (sometimes 0.3 seconds)that it occasionally drags inedible prey into its burrow by mistake it occasionally drags inedible prey into its burrow by mistake