What 蝪 means
It names a burrowing spider as tāng and can represent the lizard character 蜴 as yì. The old Chinese wordbook Erya preserves 王，蛈蝪; its commentary records this as a local name from Hebei in northern China and connects the animal with 螲蟷, a spider that lives in a burrow with a lid over its entrance.
Why does 蝪 have two readings?
The surrounding word determines the intended reading. In 蛈蝪, Mandarin tāng sounds roughly like “tahng” with a high, level tone; where 蝪 stands for 蜴 in a lizard passage, yì sounds like “ee” with a falling tone. The first is a regional spider name; the second follows the lizard sense of 蜴.
The spider reading is a regional animal name preserved in reference works, not everyday conversational vocabulary.
A bare 蝪 cannot tell you whether the intended animal is a spider or a lizard.
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsDon't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Why does 蝪 show as a box?
A box means the font or app displaying the text has no glyph for 蝪. If the character was sent intact, the text value is still 蝪; a font with broader CJK coverage may display it.
How to type 蝪
蝪\876ACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.