In an unusual evolutionary twist, local stick spiders have come up with an almost identical repertoire of color morphs in multiple locations.

This discovery closes a 170-million-year gap in the fossil record.

Scientists explore why male peacock spiders are so colorful. 

A cornucopia of toxins in the animal kingdom could provide inspiration for novel painkillers, but so far, effective drugs have proven elusive.
 

Arachnids harbor a plentiful array of molecules that target mammalian pain receptors.

Prey stick to orb-weaver spider webs because their waxy outer layers mesh with spider silk to form a matrix glue.

Inspired by the Sorting Hat from the Harry Potter series, scientists aptly dubbed this pointy spider Eriovixia gryffindori, after the fictional yet formidable wizard Godric Gryffindor.   

Trap-jaw spiders have the fastest, most powerful bite of any arachnid, scientists show. 

A study of black widow spiders suggests that the arachnids leave traces of their own genetic material and DNA from prey in their sticky webs.

The predatory toxins employed by animals separated by millions of years of evolution are virtually identical, a study shows.