Spiders do make noise, though most of what they say travels as vibration through leaves, soil or silk rather than as sound in the air. A few are loud enough for people to hear, from the hiss of a giant tarantula to the purr of a courting wolf spider on dry leaves.1Science NetLinks. What Noise Do Spiders Make and Why? When you hear a spider, it is usually either warning you off or trying to impress a mate. Spiders have no ears, yet some can still pick up sound from metres away, and one orb weaver uses its web as a giant eardrum.2PubMed Central. Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor
The Spider Sounds People Can Actually Hear
Tarantulas are the loudest spiders. The Goliath birdeater of South America hisses when threatened, and the hiss can be heard up to about 15 feet (4.5 metres) away.3Science NetLinks. What Noise Do Spiders Make and Why? Australian tarantulas are nicknamed whistling or barking spiders because most species can make a whistling or humming noise.4The Australian Museum. Australian tarantulas The Queensland whistling tarantula makes a hissing sound, a trait shared with other Australian tarantulas.5Critter Science. The Queensland Whistling Tarantula Some tarantulas in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, also make warning sounds when disturbed.6Sains Malaysiana. Acoustic Stridulating Responses of Various Tarantula Species in Peninsular Malaysia
Wolf spiders are the other group worth listening for. Males of one North American species drum on dead leaves in spring woodland, and people can hear it about 6 metres away.7Animal Behaviour. Acoustic behaviour of a wolf spider, Lycosa gulosa The sound is a buzzy rustle or purr, so it is often mistaken for an insect in the leaf litter. Much of what we hear is a side effect of the strong vibration the spider sends through the leaf.8Bioacoustics. Characterizing the vibratory and acoustic signals of the “purring” wolf spider, Gladicosa gulosa (Araneae: Lycosidae) On damp leaves the signal fades much faster, so you are likelier to hear it on a dry spring day.9Journal of Insect Behavior. Effects of Leaf Moisture on Transmission and Detection of Communication by a Wolf Spider Sound from leaf litter is hard to pinpoint, and a rattle there is far more likely to be an insect, so the sound alone is not proof of a spider.
The scratching or clicking you hear at night indoors is rarely a house spider. Ordinary house spiders are far too quiet for people to hear, and insects, mice or the building itself are better suspects. Audible spiders are mostly large tarantulas or outdoor wolf spiders on leaves.
How Spiders Make Sounds Without a Voice
The commonest method is rubbing a row of ridges or spines against another surface, the same trick crickets use to chirp.10Science NetLinks. What Noise Do Spiders Make and Why? Australian tarantulas rub rows of stiff spines at the base of their palps, the small leg-like feelers by the mouth, against spines on their jaws.11The Australian Museum. Australian tarantulas The Goliath birdeater rubs bristles on its legs together to hiss.12Branson’s Wild World. Goliath Bird Eating Spider Some male jumping spiders scrape bristles on the front of the abdomen against a ridged file on the back of the body.13The Journal of Arachnology. Sound production and associated morphology in male jumping spiders of the Habronattus agilis species group (Araneae, Salticidae) Similar abdomen-scraping setups appear in several other spider families, including cobweb spiders.14The Journal of Arachnology. Sound production and associated morphology in male jumping spiders of the Habronattus agilis species group (Araneae, Salticidae)
Up close, the file is a patch of fine ridges and the scraper is a stiff spine or bristle dragged across it, a bit like running a fingernail along a comb. Each pass over a ridge makes one tiny pulse, and many pulses in quick succession blend into a buzz or hiss. Rubbing faster or slower changes the result, so a spider can vary its signal.
Other spiders drum, tap or shake. Male wolf spiders beat their palps on dead leaves and also tap the tip of the abdomen.15Animal Behaviour. Acoustic behaviour of a wolf spider, Lycosa gulosa Spines on the feet press the leaf, so the leaf acts like a drumskin that carries the signal.16Science. Sound Production by Nearctic Wolf Spiders: A Substratum-Coupled Stridulatory Mechanism Male black widows use three distinct signals, each made a different way: shaking the abdomen, bouncing, and plucking web threads.17Animal Behaviour. Vibratory communication in a black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus): signal structure and signalling mechanisms Female feather-legged spiders shake their whole web in short strong bursts by flexing their front legs and swinging the abdomen.18PubMed. Vibratory movements in contests between females of the feather-legged spider (Uloborus plumipes)
Vibration, not airborne sound, is the main spider channel for a few reasons. A small body makes weak sound in air but can shake a leaf or thread efficiently. Silk and leaves carry the vibration straight to the receiver’s legs, and the sound we do hear in air is often a by-product. Web spiders also live on their silk, so shaking it is the natural way to talk.
Hissing and Whistling to Scare Off Predators
Australian tarantulas whistle most readily when disturbed and rearing up in a defensive pose, and the sound may deter predators.19The Australian Museum. Australian tarantulas African tarantulas’ sounds are thought to warn off small mammals and the large wasps that hunt tarantulas.20Sains Malaysiana. Acoustic Stridulating Responses of Various Tarantula Species in Peninsular Malaysia
Sounding like a wasp can protect a spider too. In tests, a huntsman spider never attacked buzzing wasps but always ate silent wolf spiders.21envirobites. Stop Copying Me! – Spiders that buzz like wasps A buzzing spider that sounds like a wasp was attacked only about a third of the time by the huntsman.22envirobites. Stop Copying Me! – Spiders that buzz like wasps Geckos still grabbed the buzzing spiders, though they spat them out, so the trick does not fool every predator.23envirobites. Stop Copying Me! – Spiders that buzz like wasps
A threatened tarantula typically raises its front legs and body and may show its fangs, which makes it look larger and more dangerous. The hiss adds a second warning that works even when a predator can’t see well, such as at night or in dark burrows.
If a pet or wild tarantula hisses at you, treat it as a clear request to back off. Give it space and avoid handling it until it calms. Some tarantulas also flick irritating hairs, so keep your face away.
Courtship Songs and Drumming
In one wolf spider, the male’s leaf-drumming alone is enough to make a female ready to mate.24Elsevier / Animal Behaviour. Communication via substratum-coupled stridulation and reproductive isolation in wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) Each species drums its own pattern, which keeps related species from mating with each other.25Elsevier / Animal Behaviour. Communication via substratum-coupled stridulation and reproductive isolation in wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) In a jumping spider, males that could vibrate mated more often, and faster signalling did best.26Ethology. Vibratory Communication in the Jumping Spider Phidippus clarus: Substrate‐borne Courtship Signals are Important for Male Mating Success Some silenced males still mated, though, so vibration works alongside the male’s visual dance.27Ethology. Vibratory Communication in the Jumping Spider Phidippus clarus: Substrate‐borne Courtship Signals are Important for Male Mating Success
Courtship is risky because females are often larger and may treat any moving thing on the web as food. A female often hunts by feeling vibrations, so a male walking toward her feels like prey unless he signals otherwise. His signal has to differ from the irregular struggle of an insect caught in silk, and steady, repeated patterns do. In orb weavers, a male’s shuddering vibration made females slower to attack prey, while random noise did not.28PubMed Central. Male courtship vibrations delay predatory behaviour in female spiders That is why males of web-building species often begin signalling from the edge of the web rather than walking straight in.
Vibrating Contests Between Rivals
Most male jumping spiders in contests send bursts of 2 to 7 quick vibrations through the surface.29PubMed Central. Assessment during aggressive contests between male jumping spiders Rival males face off on the surface they share, and each reads the other’s signals. Bigger males vibrate more, and males vibrate more when their rival does, so the exchange runs back and forth, each spider adjusting to what it feels.30PubMed Central. Assessment during aggressive contests between male jumping spiders Because size shows in the signalling, the rival can often judge who is larger before any contact.
A vibration contest lets the weaker spider back off unhurt. Fights risk lost legs or death for both, so most disputes end before contact.
Females compete this way too. Female feather-legged spiders shake their webs only when a rival of their own species is present.31PubMed. Vibratory movements in contests between females of the feather-legged spider (Uloborus plumipes)
Signals don’t always settle things. Male golden silk orb weavers perform vibration displays on webs that can escalate to physical fights.32Behavioral Ecology. Vibrating aggression: spider males perform an unusual assessment strategy during contest displays
Can Spiders Hear Without Ears
Spiders have no ears. Fine upright hairs on their legs sense air movement from any direction.33A-Z Animals. Do Spiders Have Ears and Can They Hear? Tiny slit-shaped sensors in the leg joints feel strain when a web or surface shakes.34A-Z Animals. Do Spiders Have Ears and Can They Hear? Web spiders rely more on the slit sensors, hunting spiders more on the hairs.35Lukas Guides. The Spider’s Ear
Each hair sits on a flexible base and moves when air moves past it, like a reed swaying in a breeze. The movement becomes a nerve signal, so the spider feels sound as air motion rather than hearing it. Because the hairs stand up all over the legs, a spider can sense sounds from different directions, and hairs of different lengths respond best to different kinds of movement.
The slits sit in the hard outer skin near a joint and are squeezed or stretched when the leg flexes or the surface shakes. That tiny change in shape triggers a nerve signal, so the spider feels strain rather than sound. They are especially good at picking up vibrations travelling through silk or the surface the spider stands on, which suits web spiders that spend their lives with their legs on threads.
The reach can be surprising. A jumping spider reacted to a low hum played 3 metres away, at roughly conversation volume.36PubMed Central. Airborne acoustic perception by a jumping spider It was a low sound, so it doesn’t mean spiders detect every sound at that range. One orb weaver’s web moves with sound waves almost perfectly, better than any known eardrum, letting it hear through its silk.37PubMed Central. Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor
How Noise and Tricksters Use Spider Vibrations
Funnel-web spiders were scarcer near traffic disturbance.38DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Vibratory Noise Impacts the Sensory Ecology of a Funnel-Weaving Spider One likely reason is that spiders that read vibrations pick up information from small, weak signals, and constant ground shaking can mask them. A spider can’t easily tune out noise it feels through its legs.
City spiders do adapt. They build webs that dampen vibrations, likely to avoid overload from constant noise.39PubMed. Web transmission properties vary with a spider’s past and current noise exposure A damped web passes along less of the background shaking, though the trade-off is that it may also carry less information about prey.
Social spiders have their own solution. In colonies, they stop moving together during an attack so they can hear the prey over hundreds of nestmates.40PubMed Central. Spatial proximity and prey vibratory cues influence collective hunting in social spiders
Vibrations can also be turned against spiders. An assassin bug lands on webs and makes small weak vibrations like tired prey, then eats the spider that approaches.41Science. ScienceShot: How Spider Assassins Mimic Prey