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Richard’s nature notes
Towards the end of September friends from Lockington wondered if
they had an unusual yellow spider on a vine in their greenhouse. It
actually turned out to be an ordinary Garden (= Garden Cross)
Spider, Araneus diadematus. I consulted Geoff Oxford, a
spider expert from York University, who provided the following
interesting information. He noted it was a female who would soon
deposit her eggs in a pale buff, wiry-silk, cocoon a little smaller
than a small fingernail. The female will die at the start of winter
and spiderlings will emerge from the cocoon next spring. Initially
the young (which are bright yellow with a black triangle on their
back ends - coloration quite unlike that of the adult) stay together
in a tight ball. If disturbed the ball expands outwards, only to
contact in again when they sense the danger is past. Eventually
they disperse and spin their own, very small, orb-webs. This
species shows a very wide range of background body colour, which
might be induced to some extent by the environment. This has been
claimed for the related Four-spot Garden spider (Araneus
quadratus).
Many of us, like Miss Muffet, are not keen on spiders, especially
large house spiders. It has been proposed that the nursery rhyme
‘Little Miss Muffet’ was written by Dr Thomas Muffet (1553-1604), a
physician and naturalist, for his daughter Patience. Dr Muffet
certainly had a fascination with spiders and even observed that, in
rooms, a house spider “doth beautifie them with her tapestry and
hangings”. Although some link between Dr Muffet and this rhyme is
credible, it would seem doubtful that he was the author because the
rhyme apparently first appeared in published form in 1805.
Another large British spider is the rare, semi-aquatic Fen Raft
Spider (Dolomedes plantarius) with a leg span of up to 3
inches. It is very distinctive
with a black or brown body and white or cream stripes along the
sides of the cephalothorax and abdomen.
There are only a few known sites where it occurs today in the UK
(none in Yorkshire). In order to increase the population size, eggs
have been collected from East Anglia and the spiderlings reared at
zoos and similar organisations around the UK (including at the Deep
in Hull) for reintroduction into East Anglia. The purpose of rearing
spiderlings in captivity is to try to achieve higher survival rates
than would occur in the wild. For more information see
http://www.dolomedes.org.uk/
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