{"id":662265,"date":"2025-12-30T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662265\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T10:30:11","slug":"hunt-on-for-venomous-false-widow-spider-hotspots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662265\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunt on for venomous false widow spider \u2018hotspots\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe thought that with the level of interest in this spider, we would hear a bit more from people, perhaps slightly panicky kind of responses saying they found some spiders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, in fact, it\u2019s been surprisingly quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

That could be because people had not recognised it, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other possibility is that, in fact, this new invasive species is not as widespread as … early indications suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it could be that it is very locally abundant, possibly in a number of places around the country … and hasn\u2019t spread sort of uniformly across the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, Massey researchers will search the \u201chotspots\u201d where they\u2019ve already been found, beginning in Porirua<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll gradually move away from urban areas \u2013 metre by metre \u2013 to see if the spiders are still present as they head into grass, shrub and bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be that they\u2019re hotspots because that\u2019s just where we\u2019ve paid attention, or they\u2019re real hotspots because there are relatively high densities of these spiders just in those places,\u201d Trewick said.<\/p>\n

Their locations could also be determined by the wind, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the hatchlings pop out of their little bundle of eggs, this little sort of cocoon, very, very tiny, the first thing that they do is let out a little strand of silk … and that catches the wind and is enough to lift them off and take them away.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of them, of course, will land up somewhere useless, but some might find just a nice little spot to make their first web.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers will also do population genetic work to understand how many spiders arrived in New Zealand<\/a>, and which country they came from.<\/p>\n

PhD students in the British Isles, Europe and Chile were undertaking similar efforts, Trewick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes a really interesting multinational effort dealing with sort of a common problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biologists wanted to know whether the spider was moving into native environments, and interacting with other native spiders and animals, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that happened, then that would be a bigger … biodiversity conservation issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to look out for \u2013 and where<\/p>\n

The noble false widow is a pale reddish colour with distinctive white markings on the abdomen, \u201cthe big blobby part of the body\u201d, said Trewick.<\/p>\n

They had a large, spherical abdomen, smaller \u201cfront end\u201d and long, naked legs, Trewick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSort of a classic cartoon spider, not your hairy tarantula-y kind of spider at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The spiders are about 1cm long, and the legs are another couple of centimetres, said Trewick.<\/p>\n

They have been found around people\u2019s homes, under pot plants, tarpaulin and in fence crevices.<\/p>\n

The spiders were most active at night, and they were speedy and could disappear quickly once disturbed, said Trewick.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe thought that with the level of interest in this spider, we would hear a bit more from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[184315,202378,3576,202379,71836,104848,254,70,63804,16,15,123694,68327,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-662265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-crimp","9":"tag-false","10":"tag-for","11":"tag-hotspots","12":"tag-hunt","13":"tag-lauren","14":"tag-on","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-spider","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-venomous","20":"tag-widow","21":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115808057572748757","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}