ABSTRACT
The microanalytical entomologist can expect to encounter certain species of scorpions, sunspiders or windscorpions, tailless whipscorpions and harvestmen in food products or buildings where food is handled or stored. Spiders are carnivores that are attracted to the insects and mites that infest a building or food product rather than to the food products themselves. Predatory arthropods, spiders included, never occur indoors in sufficient numbers to be economically beneficial. There are about 30,000 known species of spiders. Of these, about 50 are synanthropic. The filth that synanthropic spiders produce includes webbing, exuviae and discarded remnants of their insect prey. Most spiders can be recognized without magnification by a combination of characteristics. The body is unsegmented and divided into two distinct regions, the cephalothorax and abdomen, narrowly connected by a slender pedicel. Spiders and spider fragments can be precisely identified by comparing them with authentic specimens for characteristics that are visible at low magnifications.
