Wildlife Autumn 2007 (spring wildlife Down Under)

[mark smyth]

I thought I should start a new page because the last one is 40 pages long!

[mark smyth]

This giant Tarantula nearly got me while I was moving pots. More hairs on it's legs than I have on mine

[Carlo]

...and more information than we needed to know...

[Carlo]

The baby five-lined skinks (Eumeces fasciatus) have been out and about for a few weeks, but so far too fast for a picture. They are stunning little reptiles; bodies black, striped with yellow; tails bright blue. They are carnivores, eating insects and arthropods (with an occasional bit of cannabalism mixed in). They love the rock walls and edges of pathways where they can occasionally be seen sunning, but mostly running.

[Anthony Darby]

Your spider looks like Tegenaria domestica (House Spider). This is the one that spins cob-webs (those sheet-like structure found in your shed and garage and sometimes rockery) and it is the wandering males that wander our houses looking for mates. It is the smalles of four species found in the UK. The largest species T. parietina, the Cardinal Spider, so-called because Cardianal Wolseley was frightened of them. A London Bobby once stopped the traffic on London Bridge to let one cross the road. It can be 5" across.

[Maggi Young]

I'll take biting skinks before five inch spiders any day!

[Lesley Cox]

I agree Maggi, though it looks as if Mark's spider is already having wasp for his lunch.

[mark smyth]

That's its body, Lesley

[Lesley Cox]

Well yes, now I've stood on my head I can see that it is. Sorry spider. It's a bit hairy for a wasp now I come really to look at it. How long are those legs Mark? Longer than yours?

[Anthony Darby]

Can't see a wasp, but noticed the empty snail shell. It could of course be Tegenaria gigantia, which is the more northern and western equivalent to the Cardinal Spider. They are all creatures of the night, and possibly the largest of those likely to make up the 4 spiders we each swallow in our sleep annually. BTW, if you were to put all the flies eaten by spiders every year in the UK on one side of a two pan balance and the UK human population on the other, the fly side would go down.

[Maggi Young]

I would comment, Anthony, but I'm lying down in a darkened room

[Maggi Young]

Ventured out of darkened room , only to be met by Ian, who opined that he doesn't beleive HE swallows four spiders a year, so I must be getting EIGHT! AARGH!

[Martin Baxendale]

Thanks for that Anthony! I'm now going to have to sleep with my head inside a pillow case! Where on earth did you get a statistic like that? Come to think of it, how could anyone come up with a statistic like that??!!! You wouldn't be having a bit of fun with us arachnophobes, would you?

[Martin Baxendale]

Thanks for that Anthony! I'm now going to have to sleep with my head inside a pillow case! Where on earth did you get a statistic like that? Come to think of it, how could anyone come up with a statistic like that??!!! You wouldn't be having a bit of fun with us arachnophobes, would you?

Quoting myself here, after correcting the typo in the above post - and adding that I once read something by the guy who draws the Dilbert cartoons, who said that one night his cat stood on the switch for his bedside light, coming for a bit of affection as the cartoonist reached for the glass of water he always kept on the bedside table.

The light went on, and he saw he has about to drink a huge spider floating in the glass of water. He turned to his girlfriend and commented on how lucky that was. The girlfriend replied: "But what about all the times the light didn't go on? You've probably been drinking spiders night after night." Then turned over and went back to sleep. 

[mark smyth]

When I cleared my room for new carpet I found no spiders