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UK cave spiders - the scariest wee beasties in my home!
- Thread starter Simon Cole
- Start date
KirstyF
Member
Ahh but they aren’t all scary. Who wouldn’t want to take this little guy home. 🥰
Ghettofarmulous
Member
I have a fear of spiders but I would never kill them. They are fascinating like all creatures. I scoop them up in a glass and throw them outside. Last year I was shaking my bed out and a false widow fell to the ground. It sounded like a piece of hard candy. That terrified me.
Simon Cole
Member
I'm having one of those late-nights/early-mornings again 😵 Managed to get a slug in my tea, then came downstairs and right by the side of my kitchen sink guess who had set up shop... ![20230727_045658[1].jpg](https://www.ukaps.org/forum/data/attachments/208/208725-7a014d3c4a68dc8ff8266a7f6312d9e1.jpg?hash=egFNPEpo3I "20230727_045658[1].jpg")
You could get a Chameleon @Simon Cole to mop up the ones in the house. You get a very cool pet/friend and a free food source out of the situation.
zozo
Member
A long time ago I once had a few days of work at a water treatment plant we had to maintain and replace some old pumps in the pump house. And the outside wall (facade) +/- 160 ft² at the back (forest side) of this little house was from the ground up to the roof totally covered in thick sheets of spiderwebs. I had never seen such a large colony of spiders in my life. Since there never is much human activity on the terrain itself and closed to the public it looked undisturbed for decades and really looked like an Arachnafobia Filmset.
As far as I remember only have seen the Garden spider (Araneus diadematus) in there and thousands of them. I have no idea if they also live intentionally in colonies but it sure looked like that. And it didn't look like each spider had its own little wheel web it looked more like a 160ft² solid and connected and shared web construction.
I guess because of all the water basins around there were enough flying insects and enough to catch and eat and thus no reason to move.
Back then mobile phones with cameras weren't invented yet, all I have is memories of it and it was the first and last time that I've seen it.
Simon Cole
Member
Amazing. I think they call those a spider swarm web, or something like that. I have only seen it once before and that was near Zaltbommel, near the canals there,.
Mat H
Member
Hi all,
Do you have a picture of the abdomen pattern? <"araneae - Gallery">
cheers Darrel
Spiders are really difficult to ID.
Do you have a picture of the abdomen pattern? <"araneae - Gallery">
cheers Darrel
Mat H
Member
I'll see what I can do!
I have quite a few pictures of other spiders though with the exception of this one and the one pictured below (although 'spider' is questionable as it seemed a little uslesss out of water and was happily swimming about I'm my old 60ltr for weeks) I'm usually okay with identification.
Attachments
Mat H
Member
Hi all,
There is an aquatic spider (Argyroneta aquatica) in the UK, but <"I've never seen it">.
cheers Darrel
I might start here <"Spiders in your home">.
It might be a Water Mite, you get them very commonly in ponds etc. They are quite small. <"Hydrachnidiae | NatureSpot">.
There is an aquatic spider (Argyroneta aquatica) in the UK, but <"I've never seen it">.
cheers Darrel
Mat H
Member
Thanks Darrel,
Yes I landed on water mite too eventually, in the absence of proper identification and given my observations, albeit spiders can survive for a supprisingly long time in water. - Argyroneta aquatica would have been nice but as you say rare and likewise I've never seen one or it was so long ago, pottering around investigating rivers and ponds as a child, that I've forgotten.
Might post my other 'Spiders' here too as it seems to be an appropriate thread.
Reading the link reminds me of my bugbear that people refer to Tipulidae/Diptera (crane fly) as Daddy Long legs, to me a Daddy Long Legs has always been Opiliones (harvestmen), moreso even than Pholcidae (cellar spiders) - though it will be driven by people's first experiences with them and how they were referred to by others, I also have to concede that they do all indeed have long legs.
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