…Hence, you long legged spinners, hence!”

Willian Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 2, Scene 2)

 

 

I must say at the outset that I don’t like spiders very much. The bloody great hairy jobs in the Hobbit, Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter movies didn’t help much either. Coming to Australia has meant that the chances of coming into contact with some horrible large spider with a venomous bite have increased. However, of late that maybe changing. That could be because I’ve seen some rather cute jumping spiders and the rather spectacular looking Jewel Spiders. It maybe that I’ve just become desensitised by seeing so many, referred to as “flooding” in psychotherapy. Nah! Got to be honest the large hairy ones still give me the heebie-jeebies.

 

 

 

 

I think it was the jumping spiders that made me more comfortable about spiders as they are sort of cute with that turret head and the way that they look at you. I was particularly enamoured with the Shaggy Red-headed House Hopper (Hypoblemum villosum) I found in the laundry. He was tiny, no bigger than 5mm. Since then I’ve seen other varieties around the garden – they’re a bit bigger but I can tolerate them.

 

 

 

 

The jewel spiders are also quite attractive to look at. They come out around Christmas time, hence their more common name of Christmas Spider. What they and the jumping spider have in common is that they are not large nor are they poisonous.

 

 

 

 

The next spider I’ve become reasonably  tolerant to is the Golden Orb Weaver (Nephila edulis). Now these are big – well the females are at 4cm in body length, the males don’t get much bigger than 6mm. Thankfully they are very reluctant to bite and when they do according to the Australian Museum “Symptoms are usually negligible or mild local pain, numbness and swelling. Occasionally nausea and dizziness can occur after a bite. Seek medical attention if symptoms persist.”. Re-reading that I now don’t  feel reassured. The webs are what attracts me to them. They are magnificent creations at over 1 metre in diameter and the golden silk that they are made from shimmers spectacularly in the early morning light.  I can’t walk past one without stopping to take a photo. So it’s very convenient that I’ve got one just outside the front door.

 

 

So far it sounds like I’m fairly tolerant to spiders. Well let me tell you there is one species that can induce a full on panic reaction  that is the Huntsman Spider. It’s not that they are big – they are flippin’ big and have a leg span of 15cm and a large hairy body to boot. It’s the way they move and the speed of them as they run across the walls and disappear behind the sofa.  They are the stuff of scary movies. If you should try and swat one with a rolled up newspaper or magazine they’re just as likely to snatch it off you and give you a good walloping. I don’t care how beneficial they are to have in the garden or that they are relatively harmless. “Relatively harmless” – who decides these things? That’s like saying Donald Trump is relatively harmless unless you live in the Middle East. Sorry I’ve gone off piste.  Huntsman Spiders – well I don’t like having them in the house. They make me do the spider dance – it’s where you manically hop from leg to leg while swating the imaginary spiders on your body and screaming like an adolescent girl in a slasher B movie. Thankfully we have our resident house geckos and spider wasps to keep them away.