BUG ME

Nursery web spider

BY MELODY THOMAS

Name: Nursery web spider Scientific name: Dolomedes minor Status: Endemic, widespread. Description: If you don’t know these spiders, you’ll know their webs: the big, white ones you see thickly webbed to the tips of gorse and other shrubs. The webs are beautiful, and used to protect their young rather than trap food (hence the spider’s name), but seeing an adult spider might still give you a fright! They’re big, with a leg span of 6cm or more in adult females, brown or greyish in colour, with a yellowish stripe running lengthwise along their bodies, and they can move quickly. Habitat: Dolomedes minor is found throughout Aotearoa in a variety of habitats, from sea level to subalpine areas, including scrub and grasslands. They hunt without webs, feeding nocturnally on prey unlucky enough to bump into them, including locusts, other spiders, dobsonfly larvae, earthworms, bees, and other small insects. Look/listen: Sightings of these spiders start to rise at this time of year, continuing through the summer months. When you spot a web, have a peek around the base of the plant, where she’s likely to be hiding out during the daytime. If it’s night, you’re likely to have spotted her already – perched on top guarding her babies.

Tell me a story: When summer hits, the female nursery web spider is often seen roaming about carrying a large white ball underneath her. This is her egg sac, and she totes it wherever she goes, like a weird, gestational handbag – until her young are ready to emerge, at which point she builds them their nursery web. The spiderlings will spend a week or so inside the web, after which they disperse via a process called “ballooning”, sending long strands of thread up into the air, to be carried out into the big wide world on updrafts.

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