Guest Author • May 19, 2021 •
May 17, 2021 by Eric Boodman About 18 years ago, Andrea Colla got an unusual request. Would he come survey the fauna of a Nazi air-raid shelter? Even by entomologists’ standards, the task was weird. This warren lay under the Italian city of Trieste, and it was built in secret between 1943 and 1944 at the orders … Read More
Alison Campbell • May 16, 2019 •
I’ve learned quite a bit about spiders over the years. (And I have never been able to understand the “burn it with fire!” some folks take towards these 8-legged creatures.) For example, it turns out that some spiders actively hunt fish, while others are vegetarian! Then, late last year, I came across a couple of articles on an … Read More
Alison Campbell • Oct 17, 2017 •
Like probably everyone reading this, I have always thought that spiders are carnivorous, sucking the precious bodily fluidsA from their prey. I mean, those fangs! And I was wrong, for it seems that some spiders eat some plant material alongside their liquid meals – and some are almost fully vegetarian. A just-published paper (Painting, Nicholson, Bulbert, Norma-Rashid & LI, 2017) … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Oct 26, 2016 •
I may be turning into a grumpy old man. But sadly the click-bait title in Stuff about NZ Spiders annoyed me. The actual article was about how fascinating NZ spiders were. Rather than fueling the irrational fear of spiders, the article assuaged it. It pointed out that NZ spiders weren’t particularity dangerous, that the common daddy-long legs was … Read More
John Kerr • Oct 14, 2016 •
Species of coastal New Zealand spiders likely rafted here as a part of an eight million year round-the-world trip, suggests a new study. The Amaurobioides genus of spiders has species dotted around the Southern Hemisphere, including New Zealand, Australia and South America. These spiders eke out a tough life living in the coastal ‘spray zone’ on rocky shores. The genus includes the sea … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jan 11, 2016 •
A few days ago there was a story in the Herald about an Australian huntsman spider that had been found by NZ’s border security workers at Auckland airport. With a legspan of up to 15cm these are not small creatures! And yes, we do have them in NZ as well, but they’re a different genus: NZ readers … Read More
Guest Author • Apr 23, 2015 •
By Dr Anne Wignall, Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University. Spiders often get a bad reputation – with eight legs, fangs and a habit of coming into our homes without invitation, they can seem like they belong in another world. But spiders are fascinating and can be more like us than we think. A female jumping spider … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Dec 03, 2012 •
The press seems to be full of people frothing at the mouth over suggestions by Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne that the manufacturers of ‘legal highs’ should be required to provide safety information on their products before they are allowed on New Zealand shelves. This comes on the back of the minister announcing a … Read More
David Winter • May 15, 2011 •
I seem to have run out of week. I had a great idea for a Sunday post this week, but I'm not going to have time to write that one. Instead, here's a recent discovery from the backyard. Recognise the eyes? This must be a male of the same Cycloctenid (scu... Read More
David Winter • May 01, 2011 •
Can you guess what these patterns represent? Well, having read the title of the post you may have guessed that each black dot is an eye. In fact, these pictures all represent the way a particular family of spiders arrange their eyes. For spiders, th... Read More