Thread about spiders (not for the arachnophobic!)

[gentlegreen]

My Segestria is still there.
Perhaps I'll call her Minnie.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

At least, we should all hope and pray that that's spiders plural.....

It is - thousands and thousands of them.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

My Segestria is still there.
Perhaps I'll call her Minnie.

I think that would be quite apt.

 

[billy_bob]

It is - thousands and thousands of them.

Ok, that's good

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

As fishfinger said, an elephant weevil.
Native of Australia so you're unlikely to find one in your garden.

ah right, missed fishfinger's response

 

[Sirena]

 

[Chilli.s]

 

[coley]

Huntsman lurking in my letterbox ,
along with a few snails and a mountain
of snail shite.

View attachment 61900

Waiting for the posties fingers

 

[Chilli.s]

 

[gentlegreen]

That could well be a segestria florentina .

 

[Chilli.s]

Yeah, thats my pet. (Flossy)
Apparently they live a long time Seg.Flo. so quite hopefully. I read someware about spiders living for 50 years.

 

[Cid]

90 minutes of spiders with Alice Roberts:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04mqc4z/spider-house

 

[Cid]

Orb weaver attack-wrapping...

salticus scenicus - nice to put a name to my favourite spider.

 

[gentlegreen]

90 minutes of spiders with Alice Roberts:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04mqc4z/spider-house

That was very disappointing.
I suppose it was designed to capture the Halloween audience.

Typical Alice Roberts vehicle.
The actual content could easily have fitted into 15 minutes.

 

[gentlegreen]

Living World tomorrow morning on Radio 4 - 06.35.
And as a podcast later.

Drystone Walls
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qyz3
Spiders love the nooks and crannies in drystone walls. The Peak District has 100s of miles of them and many different species of spider, from web builders to fast hunters, live there. Wolf spiders race after their prey on long, powerful legs. Jumping spiders leap from a hiding place. The tiny money spiders build webs like hammocks for prey to fall into and lace weaving spiders construct mats of web with recoiling strands that drag the prey to the spider. The limestone walls of the White Peak are not only a beautiful feature of this part of the National Park, they were built with great skill and patience by generations of skilled workmen. Mary Colwell meets Sarah Henshall, lead ecologist with Buglife and Simon Nicholas, the local Ranger for the National Trust, to discover the 350 million year old limestone that forms the walls and search for the mini beasts that live in their depths.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04p5f39

 

[gentlegreen]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/deadly-spider-can-kill-one-4715326#rlabs=8

Deadly spider that can kill with one bite found in a back garden in KENT

A deadly Australian redback spider - that can kill a human with one bite - has been found in a back garden in KENT.

The venomous creature is one of the few spiders that can be seriously harmful to humans and displays sexual cannibalism while mating.

One reportedly killed dad-of-five John Francis Kennedy in September this year in Ireland after a bite led to his stomach and testicles swelling.

The redback spider, which is related to the even-more-deadly black widow, were responsible for at least 14 deaths in Australia before the introduction of antivenom.

One of the venomous Australian redback spider's reportedly killed dad-of-five John Francis Kennedy in September this year in Ireland

But it didn't ...

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/man-died-from-ruptured-oesophagus-not-spider-bite-299056.html[/SIZE]

 

[farmerbarleymow]

.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

But it didn't ...

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/man-died-from-ruptured-oesophagus-not-spider-bite-299056.html[URL='http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/man-died-from-ruptured-oesophagus-not-spider-bite-299056.html[/SIZE][/QUOTE'][/SIZE][/URL]

A truly awful way to die - I knew someone who died like that. As in this case, it was alcohol related, and the oesophageal wall eroded into the main artery behind, causing massive haemorrhaging.

 

[Epona]

It is true that you can encounter some non-native species of spiders in certain situations. My dad was an aircraft fitter for years, and once was refitting an aircraft and he and his colleagues found a nest of redbacks in the joint where the wing joins onto the plane. They all backed off and called in pest control to deal with it.

I've also told you all the story (many times) about the brown recluse who came home with me from North Carolina.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I spotted this long-legged beastie in my bathroom last night. Like a freaky spidey-stalker, I immediately got my camera out to take lots of pictures of the poor little thing. Think I've frightened it off with the repeated flash of the camera, as I've not seen it today.

 

[gentlegreen]

cellar spider - I have some in my computer corner.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

cellar spider - I have some in my computer corner.

I don't have a cellar, so guess it might be living beneath the panels in the bathroom. Its one of the very few spiders I've seen indoors for a long time.

 

[gentlegreen]

I must have half a dozen species and two I say hello to every day - the segestria in my bathroom and the false widow in the kitchen.
The cellar spiders occasionally belay down onto my keyboard.

 

[Cid]

i thought I had another floater (an eye floater ffs) yesterday... Took off my glasses and there was a tiny spider dangling in front of the lens. Not seen a spider for ages, but it's spring and our eight-legged friends are returning. Spiders...

 

[Leafster]

I don't have a cellar, so guess it might be living beneath the panels in the bathroom. Its one of the very few spiders I've seen indoors for a long time.

I think they like the humidity in the bathroom. I used to get them in my old place. I haven't seen them in the new place yet.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I think they like the humidity in the bathroom. I used to get them in my old place. I haven't seen them in the new place yet.

Mine is an internal bathroom so the humidity is probably fairly high.

 

[gentlegreen]

A couple of days ago a baby spider parachuted onto my face in the bathroom and when I looked up there were hundreds of babies on the ceiling.
Today there seemed to be a lot fewer of them and several adult spiders.

 

[gentlegreen]

I hadn't seen Minnie, my bathroom segestria florentina for some time and earlier today I noticed an old web below this with some spider parts in it and wondered if she'd succumbed to the daddy long leg spiders

But she's moved into more spacious ready-made accomodation -and the spider parts were probably the remains of her meal she'd pushed outside ....either that or this isn't Minnie

 

[gentlegreen]

I've got another tube web spider just outside my front door.
I tried to get a closeup of its fangs, but its dinner was in the way.

 

[Epona]

I had a teg in last week, really early appearance indoors, I don't expect them until autumn!