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Argiope bruennichi

1K views 19 replies 8 participants last post by  selina20 
#1 ·
Got sent this lady by a worried horse owner who found them in her field and was concerned they would hurt her foals. She was quite scared of spiders but managed to usher it into a pot and send me it.



 
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#2 ·
Are they native to the UK? Just wondered, cos I've never heard of spiders being a problem to horses in this country, but don't know a lot about that side of things....

Nice spider, are they orb weavers?
 
#3 ·
Yes she was found in Hertfordshire. With the latest media stunt about falsies a lot of people have been riled and she sent me the spider to rule out it being something dangerous. Afterall if you didnt know the spider the yellow and black would worry you.

Yes they are orb weavers
 
#14 ·
You aren't supposed to release any non-native species into the wild. But there is a difference between non-native species, and invasive non-native species in terms of potential danger to indigenous wildlife...

Eg. American signal crayfish, or grey squirrels spread like wild fire and bugger up a lot of things, as does himalayan balsam etc etc...

But there are other non-native species that seem to co-habit reasonably well, so are not considered a threat or such a high priority for eradication as species such as the above....

Eg, minnows are not native to Scotland, but they seem to have had little effect on surrounding ecosystems....

I'm sure there are many others I don't know of....

Anyway, point is it's generally accepted that it's not a good plan to be releasing these things as there may be very bad consequences...

Believe it or not, an animal like a non-native crayfish could theoretically have a knock on effect on animals such as killer whales in the artic regions...

These crayfish destroy freshwater habitats of atlantic salmon and prey on the eggs, and young, which not only devastates things locally, but also theoretically can in turn reduce numbers of salmon migrating to artic feeding grounds where several species may be affected by a lack of prey... Not that these species purely rely on salmon, but the point is that everything is linked together so best to try to avoid upsetting the balance... It already has been buggered up by humans so much though to be fair, but I still think it's best to try not to bugger things up anymore...
 
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#19 ·
incredible pic, Sel :)

yes, these and a few other species kicking around aren't so bad. a bad example i heard of is Pholcus phalangiodes which i was told is invasive as well...and they are actually bad, because they eat other spiders...
if this is true, then i'm probably wrong to let them settle and breed in my place lol...but i feel bad hurting any arachnid. i do try to save the other species i find, however...but if this is true, i may start feeding Pholcus to my rough green snakes...
 
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