Urbanized spiders are tougher and bigger than their country cousins.

Golden orb weaver spiders residing close to highly urbanized areas in Sydney, Australia are better fed, bigger and have more offspring than their rural counterparts, said a study published a few days ago.

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Scientists were able to collect 222 of the arachnids from bushland and parks found in Sydney and compared their sizes to features of the natural and built-up landscape.

They dissected every specimen back at their lab and determined the spiders' health, size and fecundity by taking note of amount of fat in the spider, the length of the spider's longest leg segment, ratio of the segment to its body weight and its ovary size.

To measure the degree of urbanization, researchers looked mainly at ground cover at several sites throughout the city where the team gathered each spider. Researchers also measured man-altered environments such as lack of vegetation, paved surfaces and lawns as opposed to leaf litter.

"The landscape characteristics most associated with larger size of spiders were hard surfaces and lack of vegetation," said Elizabeth Lowe, a Ph.D student studying arachnids at the University of Sydney.

Australia's east coast, where Sydney is located, is home to the humped golden orb weavers collected in the study.

They are so named because it uses golden spidersilk to spin their spherical webs and because of its big, bulging thorax. Orb weavers usually spend their lives in one place, continuously repairing the same web, which can increase in size to become a meter in diameter.

Every web is occupied by only one individual female. Four to five males can be found at the perimeter of the web awaiting an opportunity to mate and be eaten afterwards.

Hotter temperatures like those found in cities allow the adapted spiders to grow bigger.

The heat might also affect the number of times a female breeds as the higher temperatures let it breed earlier, and might even allow them to lay multiple broods.

Bugs attracted to garbage, street lights and fragmented clumps of vegetation are a factor in making this arachnid larger.

TagsSpider, Urbanization, urban, City, Rural, heat, Bugs, Lights, Garbage, Australia