One of Europe’s ‘biggest spiders’ spotted in the UK
One of Europe’s largest spiders was spotted in a delivery of olives from Spain this week, startling a nursery owner.
The Spanish funnel-web spider is a venomous species with a ‘huge appetite’, and surprisingly made an appearance in West Sussex after a shipment of olives from Cordoba was unloaded.
The nursery owner, who asked not to be named, said: ‘My son, who was driving the forklift, saw it when he drove past. He just saw it out of the corner of his eye walking slowly across the yard. He rang me and said there’s something big just walked across the yard and under a pot.’
The father and son shared a photo of the spider with arachnologists on Facebook, and quickly discovered it was a Spanish funnel-web spider, or Macrothele calpeiana.
A 1989 description of the species from the British Arachnological Society called it ‘Europe’s largest spider’, and also being ‘aggressive’ when disturbed. The creatures can grow up to three inches in diameter – much larger than the average British spider.
The nursery owner added: ‘Honestly, we’re a nursery so we see bugs and spiders all the time,’ he added. But the size?
‘That was the only thing. It was impressive.’
The spider has now been taken in by Jack Casson, a spider enthusiast from Hartlepool, who said the species builds elaborate webs – with the entrance shaped like a funnel, giving it the name.
‘The spider looks to be female, is settling in very well and has already started webbing up her enclosure to make herself feel at home.
‘She has a huge appetite, having eaten five crickets since I took her in. My girlfriend has named her Bessie.’
He said, though the spider is venomous, it can’t kill humans – though a bite would hurt a lot.
‘Spiders are hugely misunderstood creatures and I hope that people reading this will look at them in a more positive light,’ he said.
‘None of our UK spiders are medically significant and the last thing a spider wants to do is bite a human hundreds of times its own size. We’re simply not on the menu and spiders don’t go around biting people willy nilly, contrary to popular belief, it seems.
‘Next time you see a spider about your home, let it go about its business. And thank it for the free pest control it provides, by helping keep at bay the bugs that actually do seek out humans to feed on.’
