Tag Archives: arachnid

Oct 08 2025
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Campus spider

Tuesday 7th October 2025, 9.10am (day 5,157)

Campus spider, 7/10/25

In actuality I will estimate this creature’s body to have been about the size of my thumbnail, so you see it here at around three times life size. Impressive web work, particularly as this resides not in some hidden cranny but beside the A34 in Manchester, on the side of the annex to the Engineering Building (sorry, the Dame Nancy Rothwell Building [B]). Spiders have been around for more than 200 million years, and, I am sure, are among the many species which will outlive us, however things pan out in a future time that I will not see.

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Jun 22 2014
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

The cave spider, again

Sunday 22nd June 2014, 12.15pm (day 1,032)

Cave spider, 22/6/14

Apologies to the arachnophobes amongst you but I think these are beautiful and impressive creatures. I have no idea whether this is the same one I’ve captured before; there is definitely more than one living in our sheds, possibly three big ones or more. As long as their webs are not disturbed they make quite willing models.

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May 11 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Tent-web spiders (feel free to avoid)

Saturday 11th May 2013, 3.50pm (day 625)

Tent web spiders, 11/5/13

OK, look, I know that this picture will freak some of you out but like the picture of the cave spider I took last year, there is such beauty in this creature. Though I don’t necessarily want a couple of dozen of these things out on the verandah of my house – which my friend Fiona seems to have at the moment. And note that the smaller one visible above is not a baby – it’s the male of the species. These things spin huge communal webs, the size of which beggars belief. But, thank heavens, they are not poisonous.

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Jun 09 2012
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Arachnophobes: don’t scroll down

Saturday 9th June 2012, 11.55am (day 289)

Spider in shed, 9/6/12

You were warned. But I think this is a beautiful creature; currently living in the shed outside our front door. Rarely have I seen a bigger one, and certainly not in England. I won’t get a better photo today so I’m posting this now. (I haven’t been able to identify the species, not for certain: if anyone can help, leave a comment…)

Postscript: Thanks to Gary, a nice man at UKsafari.com, I’ve been told it’s a Cave Spider: see this page. Species either Meta menardi or Meta bourneti, but it’s impossible to tell which one exactly without capturing it and using a magnifying glass…which I am not going to do.

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