How many legs does a spider have?

All arachnids are the spider species and they have 8 legs. They use their legs to get around and climb up walls. This is their uniqueness which separate them from insects. Most insects have only six legs and possibly a set of pincers.

Spiders' front legs have evolved to have sensory functions because they lack antennas. Again, this is a feature that has existed since trigonotarbids. It seems that the legs and their functions existed for hundreds of millions of years because they allowed the spider to be highly versatile and survive many threats. Spiders are capable of using their legs to climb many different surfaces and angles, giving them a large range to explore for food, mates, and safety.

Recently, researchers found that spiders have more legs than they needed. Scientists from the University of Nancy 1 in France took two groups of Zygiella x-notata spiders, ones with all their legs and another group where they missed one or two of their legs. They found that all the spiders were still able to build similar webs as well as hunt effectively. This means that spiders could afford to lose some of their legs and still survive, which makes them more effective when facing other predators. They also found that there was a limit to the loss because there are very few spiders with only five legs. In the lab, those five-legged spiders produced webs that were inferior to the spiders with more legs.