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False Widow Spider
All this talk lately about False Widow Spiders caught the attention of the media today, this time thankfully the good guys! Iolo Williams and his film crew turned up to film the Nobel False Widow Spider in my garage, footage of which you will get to see in his new series about Urban Wildlife in Wales. It was really nice to catch up with Iolo and the crew, the same crew of which filmed Iolo's Great Welsh Parks two years ago. Where has that time gone!
Turns out I have all three species of False Widow Spider known to be in South Wales but there is a fourth found in southern Essex called 'steatoda paykulliana', which is a relatively new comer to the Uk, said to have transferred over seas in our grapes carts. One of the female spiders I blogged about yesterday was in-fact a Nobel False Widow - steatoda nobilis. This particularly species is the one that the media went crazy about, giving them a terribly name as a result. They aren't all that bad at all.
Here is a picture of all three Spiders as you can roughly see by the non cropped images, they do vary in size. Noble being the largest and bipunctata being the most commonly found. I suspect that nearly every home in the Uk will likely have one of these three species living there - un-noticed.
I mentioned a second species of False Widow in my last blog (S. bipunctata) but didn't show you a picture. How rude and unprofessional of me. Here it is, the Rabbit Hutch Spider. Just took these photos at 3 locations around the back garden. First picture below shows a female and a very tiny male which was barely noticeable. These are the smallest of the 3 species of spider under the name 'False Widow' at only 8mm long. The third species I'm yet to see is called the Noble False Widow (Steatoda nobilis) which is 14mm long and I'm told theres only one known place in Gwent for them (by local spider expert Mike Kilner).
After a little clean out of the garage this weekend, I disturbed my first female False Widow Spider from a cardboard box in the corner. This particular False Widow (Steatoda grossa) is also called the 'Cupboard Spider' and for the obvious reason that it used to turn up in cupboards / out houses. This is different however to the False Widow's that I have in my Shed (Steatoda bipunctata) also called the 'Rabbit Hutch Spider', which is conveniently named considering that my shed was formally used to home rabbits by the previous home owners.
I don't have a Macro lens, so these pictures are taken with my phone. Both spiders below are the 'Cupboard Spiders' from my garage, a second female of which I found today surrounded by the much smaller males in a pathetic excuse of a web. False Widow webs aren't very elaborate but are however much harder to see, therefor just as effective.
I know lots of people don't like Spiders, especially ones with such a reputation as these for biting, but don't believe all the hype you hear about these. Yes they can bite but they rarely do. The bite itself for most people is just like a wasp sting, but just like bees and wasps, some people have an allergic reaction, resulting in being hospitalised. I personally have been bitten in the centre of my back by one of these and it was painful, but I'm still here.
