Araneae

Araneae

The Araneae are a sub-order of the order Arachnida, which most of us suppose to be just spiders but that, contains species like scorpions and so forth.

Araneae are all, I believe, venemous, but, thankfully, in the UK very few are able to penetrate human skin and those that can are not usually too troublesome unless you are alergic to their poison. There have been no PROVEN deaths in the UK from native, or feral spider bites… although there have been some from spiders that have hitched a ride on imported fruit.

We have False Black Widow species in our garden shed and they look very similar to the European species and are closely related to them. Their bits can pack quite a wallop so we try to avoid them. As it happens Maggie is truly arachnophobic. She is not frightened of spiders but terrified of them!

Our false widows live on woodlice and in our shed one will often come across small heaps of their dessicated corpses, sucked dry by this scary chap.

So far I’ve not managed any decent photos.

Share the tranquility