The mother of all spider webs

JOHN BISSET/Timaru Herald

The Timaru Herald South Canterbury Museum director Phillip Howe's advice yesterday after photographer John Bisset snapped a shot of the mother of all spider webs in a gorse bush at the bottom of Kellands Hill. ``It is a nursery web spider. The female inside the web gets quite huge but people never see them and when they do they often freak out because they are so big.'' The nursery web spiderlings remain near the mother's web for a week or so and their combined draglines fashion an extension of the original web, making it quite large. Shortly afterwards the spiderlings balloon away on their own, leaving the original web.

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PHILLIP HOWE is used to strange spiders turning up on his desk.

On Monday the museum director arrived back at work at the South Canterbury Museum to find two white tails, a false katapo and a red spider slater-eater.

"People bring them in to find out what they are.

"Living here in the 1970s you never used see white tails but since the 1990s they have become more common.

"The warmer weather also brings them out The jury is out on whether or not their bite is poisonous."

The Timaru Herald also sought Mr Howe's advice yesterday after photographer John Bisset snapped a shot of the mother of all spider webs in a gorse bush at the bottom of Kellands Hill.

"It is a nursery web spider. The female inside the web gets quite huge but people never see them and when they do they often freak out because they are so big."

The nursery web spiderlings remain near the mother's web for a week or so and their combined draglines fashion an extension of the original web, making it quite large.

Shortly afterwards the spiderlings balloon away on their own, leaving the original web. Herald Staff

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