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Arachnids

A photograph of a Wolf Spider.

A common sight in British gardens, a Wolf spider (Pardosa sp.).

Arachnids have two regions to the body. The front (or anterior) part is called the cephalothorax or prosoma. The rear (posterior) part is called the abdomen or opisthosoma. There are four pairs of walking legs on the prosoma in adult arachnids (but larval mites only have three pairs).

Arachnids generally feed by sucking fluids from the bodies of other organisms. Hence they tend to be predatory or parasitic, though there are exceptions. The group includes:

General structure of an arachnid

An illustration of the general structure of an arachnid.

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