OUTSIDE AND INSIDE SPIDERS

Intriguing color photos coupled with odd facts: e.g., spiders can make seven different kinds of silk, for which they use special spigots in their tail end (a magnified photo of a black widow spider's rear shows the spigots' different shapes); a spider's muscles can only pull its legs toward its body, so the spider must pump special body fluids into them to extend them. Spiders' lungs, heart, fangs, and foot claws are all viewed in dramatic closeups, and Markle also describes how they move, eat, molt, build webs and raise young (but doesn't include sizes or scientific names). Not definitive—Gail Gibbons's Spiders (1993), though written for younger readers, does a better job of describing how an orb spider builds its web—but browsers will be engaged by the novel information and revealing photographic enlargements. Brief glossary/index. (Nonfiction. 9-12)