RobClubley

I've been off work today so I decided to do some gardening out in the sunshine

I spotted this guy first:



I've been trying to get a photo of a black tunnelweb spider for ages but the buggers move too fast!
So when I spotted the web I went and get my camera ready for snapping.


And here it is. The green thing is the tip of my index finger in my gardening glove so this is maybe half as big as they can get when fully grown. This one's body was about 3cm long.



They can bite but are not poisonous like the Aussie funnelweb

What is their bite like?

These spiders are capable of delivering a painful bite because they have very large fangs. However, the symptoms of the bite are quite mild and are described as similar to a normal reaction to a bee sting. The bite should be cleaned and watched for signs of infection.

Info from here:
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, NZ - Black tunnelweb spider (Porrhothele antipodiana)

I took a little movie as well - I'll stick it on YouTube

RobClubley

bugman

i think thats a monarch caterpillar.

dreamfish

yes i think they are - there are loads of these at the kindie. They eat the swan plants. thinking about buying a load of these to encourage the monarchs to come to our garden. very cheap plant too!

dreamfish

not sure what to say about the spider.

other than we havent seen one of these up close and personal. have had 3 white tails in the house though.

RobClubley

If you move any rocks or pull up a couple of plants in our garden you're pretty much guaranteed to find a tunnelweb.