He's not that tasty, but I'll eat him anyway...

Researchers have claimed that cannabilistic species of spiders find their husband prey less tasty CLICK HERE

In a week where octopusses were observed using tools, (CLICK HERE) it seems the eight-legged amongst us are getting ideas. If a crab opens a burger bar in the next few days, I'm booked on one of Branson's new Virgin Galactic flights... you mark my words!

12 months, but still only eight legs!

I believe, for reasons only known to the calendar, that Arachnipedia (in it's current blogspot state) is now a year old.

It is currently still in a state of redesign. But I PROMISE to provide videos in the new, updated and redesigned guise.

This should all go live in January. 

In the meantime, please, if you have spider photos to identify, or just want to drop me a line, the address, as always is gavinpow77@btinternet.com

Season's meetings

It's that time of year when one string leads to another and we see/hear the patter of tiny feet, in their (spiders')  hope that, come January, the eight-legged amongst us will do and celebrate the same.

September is spider month. Always has been, always will be. Tegenaria duellica will be roaming your living room. Orb weavers will be spinning gorgeous webs in your garden. 

Many folk will be screaming, squishing and panicking. Yawn!

Britain's most noticeable spiders breed in September and October. 

Rich pickings for spider lovers this year it seems. (Hate to blow my own trumpet, but I do, ahem, believe I predicted this in an earlier post on this very site).

From the BBC.....

CLICK HERE FOR BBC VIDEO REPORT

This blog is currently under a serious redesign and therefore, the web is somewhat tangled.

However, all previous posts and links should still work as they always did. Videos should play and pictures should show.... if a little muddled!

Adverts, however, will now plonk themselves literally anywhere!

For this I am sorry. 

I hope to begin blogging merrily away on a completely redesigned site in January. This will have the spider identification pages I have mentioned before.

Lurking in a broom cupboard for too long, you WILL find spiders in your closet...

Bit of a jovial entry here.

Spiders have evaded me for some time now. Disappointing really, when one is trying to trap, snap them and then write about them. Summer has seemingly been and gone and then arrived again.

You mark my words though, Tegenaria species will be stonkers this autumn. 

Perfect summer. Very warm and very wet. Insects a-plenty for them to feed upon. These arachnids are the large species group that Brits know and usually detest. 

I'd be amazed if there weren't thousands of them crawling out come the third week in September. This is the time they generally look to mate. 

So if you see one, Pleeeeeeease don't kill it. 

They are the largest genus of UK spiders (give or take the raft spiders and cave spiders, that we never come into contact with).

Like I always say, leave big house spiders alone, or move them outside humanely. 

Always better to trap them in a cup or suchlike. Like most large spiders, they have an ability to bite. Tegenaria species generally hide away and fake death rather than attack. But if large and cornered, may try to nip. They are not at all dangerous and their bite (at its rarest worst) could feel like a mild bee sting.

Anyway, back to my entry. 

Not trying to be a showbiz ligger here, but please enjoy this small insight into TV presenter Philip Schofield's late night antics! - it IS spider-related. 

He could obviously handle Gordon the Gopher, but when he realised an eight-legged beast was going live in their bedroom, he went into twitter mode......

However, 

Time to 'Echo' what I said....

A few weeks ago, I wrote this....... 

"Some time ago (can be found a l-o-n-g way down this blog somewhere) I predicted the false widow spider [steatoda nobilis] would continue spreading in the UK. Although not much of a prediction really, more of a statement of the bleedin' obvious!

Well, apparently (according to 'the press') the spider is, now, heading northwards! Although, I suspect this eternal story is a staple favourite of journos in the usual summer copy drought, or 'silly season'. I think I've read the headline 'Dangerous spider spreads across the UK' every summer, since I first took an interest in the eight-legged beasts!

But still, it's fact I guess, and definately worth a mention on Arachnipedia."

So here, loyal readers, at the very end of July, as the 'copy drought' of which I spoke hits, The Dorset Echo informs its readers that an arachnid that has lived in the area for decades [The one, the only, Steatoda Nobilis] is still living in the area. And just to illustrate it is in the area, the paper's photographer 'paps' the spider (actually no larger than a five pence piece) in such a way to make it look like it has just stepped out of the set of the fourth Harry Potter film!

FULL STORY HERE

Time to dispel a few myths. Oh daddy-oh, there are quite a few here....

It's an issue I've meant to address for ages on arachnipedia. 

Daddy-long-legs spiders.

Now 

there's an interesting piece of folklore around these (or some of their closely related arthropods). Even comedian Ricky Gervais plays on this completely unsubstantiated garbage in his stand-up performance 'Animals'.

Quoting the joke (In reference to a cranefly): "Yeah, you're unsteady on your feet, but you have the most powerful venom known to man". Cranefly: "But I have no means of administering it - I have no teeth!" 

Well, it goes something like that anyway.

I have to admit that two or three years ago, I wasn't too sure about the facts on this eit

her!

There are three very common arthropods we all see in the UK with the 'daddy-long-legs' characteristics. And these are the facts.

(1) Crane-fly/Daddy-long-legs: A seasonal insect seen worldwide and common in British summers/autumn. Particularly irritating due to its gangling legs and attraction to light. It does not bite. The ones with a sharpened extrusion at the end of their abdomen are females - this is an ovipositor and not a stinger. Males have a blunted end to their abdomen. There are several species of this insect. Some look like giant gnats. The only threat this animal poses is that it lays its eggs in the ground and resulting larvae are the feared Leatherjackets that can eat awayy at roots. This insect is not venomous in any way. It is not a spider OR an arachnid of any type.

(2) Harvestman: These are a bit of an anomaly. They are an eight-legged invertebrate animal, which belong to a sub-category of arachnid called Opil

iones. There are thousands of these species. Far more than there are spiders. I wouldn't even start to go into sub-species, because I wouldn't even know what the hell I was talking about! Out of my depth there!

Harvestman are, while being arachnids, not actually spiders, and are more closely related to scorpions, ticks and some lice. But they are not insects and do not have a significant bite!

(3) Pholcidae/Pholcid Spider/Cellar Spider: (TOP PHOTO) This is a reclusive arachnid of the sub-species araneomorphae, which is common and spread worldwide. It is a spindly and fragile animal, which has uncate fangs. Uncate fangs are small non-protrudin

g chelicerae, designed for killing prey of a similar size. In the USA, the feared Brown Recluse/Fiddle Spider also has uncate chelicerae and can kill small animals such as lizards. There is no proof that any spider in the frail Pholcidae genus could be dangerous. 

In 2004, the US television series MythBusters set out to test the age-old 'They're the most dangerous animal on the planet, but don't have teeth big enough' theory. 

Result = Itchy arms from Pholcid spiders (which probably do give a nip) and that was it!

Incidentally, the spindly, dainty weakling that is the cellar/pholcid spider, eats (in the UK) all Tegenaria species, mouse spiders and much much more! In America, it is known for predating on the black widow. And in Australia, it eats the Redback and its much larger cousin the huntsman. Watch this NetworkTen video from Australia  

And we worry that it might bite us 'cos of a 90s urban legend?

Summer spiders

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks for the topic of arachnids. 

Massive orb-weavers in people's gardens, spiders that build their own 'waxworks' and even Michael Jackson's untimely death and its flood of new stories gets a mention here.

Seems the king of pop may have used the cover story of a spider bite after he turned up late to a hearing as part of his child abuse trial in 2002. According to some reports, he had been injecting heroin and a needle had broken off in his leg. Ewww. Poor, misguided, mess of a guy! But spiders as an excuse? That's BAD!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

It's an unusual British summer. Perhaps mainly because it has been sunny, but also because there has been a massive influx of larger spiders indoors. Our bigger arachnids tend to scurry into our houses from September onwards - usually to look for a mate.

Temperatures of +30c over past weeks have tempted some of our more fearsome spiders indoors to cool off. I've seen a plethora of tegenaria species in my house (usually seen indoors in autumn). My sister and her husband have spoken of an elongated spider they have been seeing around their house recently, and I wonder if it is maybe the woodlouse spider. I include a photo of the woodlouse spider for identification purposes in case anyone else spots it. Handle carefully though. It has a nasty nip.

Anyway, I'll sign off here with the Rory Bremner of the spider world. An arachnid that seemingly builds a double of itself in its web from detritus. 

Well, if I had eight arms I'd do the same. Wouldn't you?

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Photo. Woodlouse Spider. (C) Encyclopedia Brittanica 

'It can give a nip'

The wonderful (and so say I) BBC current affairs programme 'The One Show' has been a treat this week.

Dr George McGavin has been on hand with his UK spring insect VTs.

He's also been there for the viewers too, sending in their snaps of critters nationwide, wanting analysis. I'd like to say I was an expert of his esteem, but I could personally only identify two of the 'critter pics' sent in by the public. 

The wasp beetle and the much-under-rated and hidden bitey bugger, the woodlouse spider. [RIGHT: Photo courtesy of wildaboutbritain.co.uk].

 

Dr McGavin didn't leave out the fact that the desdera crocata genus can give a 'nip'. Fangs for that George!

Although, he did examine booklice in a woman's kitchen cupboard. I was always lead to believe that booklice are pseudoscorpians [little scorpion-like arachnids with pincers, but no stinger] - saw enough of them when I recently tidied out my own cupboard. [Picture of booklouse/pseudoscorpian included (courtesy augsburg.edu].

Dr George McGavin, by the way, has a website, with fascinating videos. He lectures at Oxford Uni and is also Professor of entymology at the University of Derby.

Read all about him and watch videos here   George McGavin

No fighting in here lads (or ladies!)

Seems these days the eight-legged amongst us come looking for me, rather than the other way around. Spiders can't log on to arachipedia, .... can they?.....

No sooner had I snapped the long-jawed orb-weaver and uploaded it, I had barely packed away my camera before I made a quick visit to the loo, and in a very grimy and dusty corner of my shower area two spiders were dueling. 

I rushed to grab my cam, thinking this was some mating ritual between one species. However, it was, in fact, one very fat, fearsome-looking female mouse spider [Herpyllus Blackwalli] encroaching onto the territory of a smaller (male I think) tegenaria spider. 

I actually think it's a juvenile Gigantia or Duellica. I can't quite see its markings properly, but can't be sure what else it would be in the house at this time of year. I don't think it's an agrestis (markings are probably wrong). At least I hope it isn't an agrestis anyway. [Hobo spider in the states].

I knew the mouse spider was in the bathroom. I'd seen her a few times before and even warned my mum she was in there just a week ago!

I don't honestly know which would win in a fight, but the mouse spider ran away first. Nor do I know which is the most venomous (to each other), but I presume it must have been the mouse spider that was trespassing, as (to my knowledge) tegenaria spiders are funnel web spiders and mouse spiders generally don't build a web. 

I love spiders, but that pair (considering they are both biting species) might have to go, if I can find them, or if they manage to eat each other - whichever is the sooner!

Stay webwise folks!

Jaw blimey!

While having a nosey at bumblebees in my parents' garden, I snapped this long-jawed orb weaver, presumably on the prowl for afforementioned bees. Unfortunately, the photos aren't the best ever. The light and wind on the bush were playing havoc with the focus on the macro function of my camera. 

I have to admit, I hadn't seen this particular spider in the wild before, and although I definitely knew it was an orb weaver, I couldn't say which one. A member of the Tetragnathidae family, the long-jawed orb weaver is common in the UK, and worldwide. 

Like many orb-weaving spiders in Britain, it has been known to give a bit of a nip. It has lengthy chelicerae (fangs), hence the name 'long-jawed'. 

It is, fortunately to us, nowhere near as massive as the golden orb-weaver (featured elsewhere on this blog) which has been known to capture birds in Australia. 

In case you're wondering, both the long-jawed and golden orb-weavers are harmless to humans!

Hmmm... as I predicted.....

Some time ago (can be found a l-o-n-g way down this blog somewhere) I predicted the false widow spider [steatoda nobilis] would continue spreading north in the UK. Although not much of a prediction really, more of a statement of the bleedin' obvious!

VIEW ON VIDEO: Steatoda Nobilis (BBC 2008)

Well, apparently (according to 'the press') the spider is, now, heading northwards! Although, I suspect this eternal story is a staple favourite of journos in the usual summer copy drought, or 'silly season'. I think I've read the headline 'Dangerous spider spreads across the UK' every summer since I first took an interest in the eight-legged beasts!

But still, it's fact I guess, and definately worth a mention on Arachnipedia.  

So, here's the link      http://current.com/items/90069751_venomous-spider-spreading-breeds-in-britain.htm 

A Mediterranean species of arachnid, introduced to the UK in the 1800s, through fruit carriage, the false widow is similar to, and related to the notorious Latrodectus family (black widow), found in America and some southern parts of Europe, and the potentially deadly Australian redback. 

The spider [steotoda) has had somewhat of a stronghold in some south western and south eastern areas of the UK for decades. It has been noted in Dorset since the 1980s and has been reported as a biter with nasty symptoms, including arythmia, swelling and flu-like illness. 

Generally, its bite should be no more frightening or painful than a bad bee or wasp sting. But people can react differently. 

It is also true that its tropical cousins the black widow and Ozzie redback have very dangerous bites, but should be noted that fatalities from these bites are incredibly rare, with the last redback fatality back in the 1950s - and it was a young child which sadly died. 

So, on that basis, just remember that the false widow has venom nowhere near as powerful as its tropical counterparts. 

As I always say though, don't push it, all spiders have venom, most will try to bite if trapped, and some will nip. So, best really to leave them alone and not handle them.

Stay webwise folks. Gav xx 

Photo: Copyright National History Museum 2009. [Steotoda Nobilis].