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Animal Themes
Invertebrates
Rain Forest
 Spiders

Spiders
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.97

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    passerby, irresponsible, underside, lethal, notorious, abdomen, lasting, cocoon, yolk, abandon, properly, reputation, exception, deposit, accept, paralyze

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Spiders   
1     Spiders are eight-legged animals. They have poison glands in their mouths that they use to kill or paralyze their victims. Without exception, all spiders are meat-lovers! They feed on insects, worms, and their own kind. Some even eat fish, lizards, or birds! There are about 40,000 species of spiders worldwide. Many people have misperceptions about spiders, such as spiders' bites are deadly, spiders are insects, or all spiders weave webs. All three assumptions are not true!
 
2     Even though all spiders have poison glands, only 30 types of them produce venom that can make us very sick. The black widow spider, undoubtedly, has the most notorious reputation. When a black widow spider bites us, we experience severe pain lasting for days. The bite is not deadly unless it is not treated properly.
 
3     Spiders are not insects for two main reasons: they have eight legs, and they have two body segments. All insects must have three pairs of legs and three body segments. However, spiders and insects do share some common features - they both have a hard skeleton, called exoskeleton; they both have a segmented body; they both have jointed legs. If spiders are not insects, what are they then? Spiders belong to a group called arachnids. Arachnids also include scorpions.

Paragraphs 4 to 7:
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