Jimmy Shaman, Age 11, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

Is it true that a spider is not an insect?

You can solve this problem by catching a spider and checking a few facts.  Careful now, most spiders can bite, so hold it in a handkerchief.  A true insect has six legs.  Your spider has eight legs.  A true insect has a slim waist and a slender neck.  Your spider has no neck at all.

These two items are enough t0 disqualify the spider from insect class.  She and her thousands of spider cousins belong in the animal class Arachnids.  But the Infect and Arachnids classes are both subdivisions of the large phylum Arthropod, which means the jointed legged ones.