Many-legged home builders

Trap-Door Spider

Harvester Ants

Harvester ants live in tunnels that they dig in the ground.
A trap-door spider’s home is a silk-lined tunnel with a door made of
silk and dirt.

In the sandy ground at the edge of a desert there is a small, round
hole. Fastened to the hole is a little, round door. The door is open.
What lives in this strange little house?

The hole in the sand is the doorway of a trap-door spider’s home. The
spider makes a long tunnel and lines it with silk. It

makes a door of silk mixed with dirt. There is even a sort of little
handle on the inside of the door. The spider can hold the door shut from
the inside if an enemy tries to get in.

Lots of other many-legged animals make homes for themselves, too. The
homes are made of silk, leaves, sand, dirt, and wood.

The purse web spider makes a long silk tube next to a tree trunk. The
spider spends its whole life inside its long, round home.

The insect called a leaf roller makes itself a new house every day. It
pulls a leaf around itself and fastens the edges together with silk that
it makes in its body. Then it eats the inside of its house!

Many kinds of ants build whole cities. They dig tunnels and storerooms
in dirt, sand, or wood. In some of the rooms they keep food, and in
others they keep the queen ant’s eggs.

One kind of termite makes a nest of dirt mixed with glue that comes from
its body. The nests are taller than a man and harder than rock!

Valley Carpenter Bee

The bee makes rooms inside a hollow stem. In each room is a white baby
bee and a yellow ball of honey.