Trapdoor Spider - NOT FOR ARACHNOPHOBES

This is my silver trapdoor spider which I have had for a couple of years now. They are affectionately known as pet holes in the hobby, as once settled in you rarely see them again!

This was her the same day I got her home. I haven't seen her in full since.



She dug a tunnel over the first night and furnished it with its camouflaged trapdoor. They are a pretty aggressive spider and will attack if cornered but they prefer to hide as their first line of defence. If you try to lift open the trapdoor, they will pull it down from the other side! It took quite a few attempts to get photos of the open tunnel.

Now you see me....





Now you don't......



Feeding is simple, drop a couple of bugs in each week and they disappear over night. I used to have quite a collection of spiders, now just this one, and my Red Knee Tarantula are all that I have due to developing an allergy to their hairs.

 

Amazing

Where does this one come from , how long do they live ?

Reminds when I lived at home my mum came back from Spain and brought me back a plant and "its in the greenhouse she shouted" when I came in from work , I nipped out to have a look and a huge black spider it was 5 inches across sitting on the top.
I called my mum to have a look and it was gone !!

Every time I went in to water plants etc a chill would run up my spine

Spruce

 

Nice one

 

i wont lie, spiders are sooo not my thing! but i must admit Coolsox the way yours made herself a little house with camouflaged door and all is fascinating!

Spruce, if i'd seen a spider that size in my greenhouse, well Mr Spider could keep it! i'd never set foot inside there again for love nor money

 

I got bitten by a spider once. I thought it was a plain old house spider. It was quite large. I let it walk across my hand because I liked spiders up until that time. It stopped, squatted and I felt ever such a slight nip, and then it legged it.

First my hand started itching. Then it went red, then red and swollen, then a bruise appeared that went all the way through from the centre of my palm to the back of my hand, then a little yellow lump appeared at the epicentre. That lasted about 3 days. Actually when I think about it in hindsight I was a bit daft really because I figured there are no spiders in Britain that posed a threat, so I ignored it. It could have just arrived in a crate of bananas for all I knew. Well anyway, I'm still here.

 

This one is a Cyphonisia species, they are found in forested areas of Tasmania. Not sure what the life expectancy is.

 

Common house spiders are usually quite docile, but are capable of biting. The chances are though it was one of the more aggressive hunting spiders.

 

this is probably a stupid question but are there many species of large house spider? i only ever remember seeing those dark brown/black 'common' ones but sometimes we do occasionally see a very distinctive looking fawn coloured one, he's built different to the others, kinda hairier & thicker too?

ugh..gives me the heeby jeebies just thinking about them

 

Coolsox if you don't mind me asking, how long did you have spiders for before you developed an allergy to their hairs? Was it after a short space of time or did you have spiders for years? Just wondering as my friend may have developed an allergy which might be his cats. He isn't sure yet though until he sees his specialist at the hospital tomorrow.

 

Although I must admit to spiders not being my favourite "insect", (Ok I know they are not classed as insects),I do find then slightly fascinating, these ones that kind of lay in wait for their prey are interesting.
I have heard that we do have a relative of the "funnel web" in the UK which works in a similar way, and kind of ambushes its prey.
They used to hide in the mortar joints in a wall where I used to work.
Rarely seen, but scary when you did.

 

Hi Fern, it took a couple of years, but its a slightly different process. Tarantulas use there hairs as a form of defence. When startled, they use their back legs to quickly rub off hairs from their abdomen, these hairs are tiny barbed harpoons called urticating hairs. They fly into the air then fall like microscopic arrows, irritating skin and nasal passages. At first it was unpleasant, I just developed a small rash but after A couple of years I became too scared to clean them out as I would start to get painful blisters.

 

The spiders that hide in the funnels in walls are usually either Labyrinth spiders or house spiders, although they produce a funnel, they are not related t the funnel web.

The UK's only relative of the Funnel web (and Tarantulas and Trapdoor Spiders) is the Purseweb spider.

http://us.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/r/_...**http://www.uksafari.com/pursewebspiders.htm

 

I looked! im brave then im not a fan of spiders as i find them scary,i would never hurt one and tell my children not too.
They are fascinating...from a distance coolsox,thank you

 

Quite a few people are allergic to cats. Me included. I used to think it was the fur, but apparently its a protein in their saliva, which of course they put all over their fur when they 'clean' themselves. For me though, its just like hayfever, so not too much of a problem, and even then I have to be close to said cat.

I once had a severe allergic reaction to a rabbit once when I was little, and came quite close to death. Nobody knew I'd deteriorated so rapidly and so extremely. The clever GP told my parents to just put me to bed, where I lay delirious and struggling to breath for a few hours before I either went to sleep or otherwise stopped noticing anything. It was only the next day when someone came for the rabbit (which we were just looking after for the day) and I started to recover just as quickly as I'd deteriorated the day before, that my dad put two and two together and concluded that the rabbit was the cause.