Post by JoannaL on Feb 10, 2021 14:30:45 GMT -5
Australians Plagued by Spider Infestations
On January 27, a woman in Sydney, Australia, walked into her daughter’s bedroom and discovered an infestation of spiders in a corner. Obviously the lady in question wasn’t arachnophobic for she said in a video, “That’s not too bad. There’s maybe 50 or 60. They’re so cute!”
She speculated the unusual visitors were huntsman spiders that hatch in the summer. The biggest spider in the world is a huntsman, with some having a leg spread of 12 inches, but the average leg spread is around only 5 inches with a body length of no more than 1 inch.
It’s not unusual for the spiders to find their way inside people’s homes and other buildings and there have been numerous reports of infestations this year. Meteorologists blame a low pressure front following several days of high temperatures that brought rain and high humidity which encouraged the huntsman spiders to seek drier locations. According to arachnologist Robert Raven, head of Terrestrial Biodiversity at Australia’s Queensland Museum, huntsman arachnids do not like wet weather and seek warm, dry locations, including the nooks and crannies in people’s homes, where the females lay their eggs. “Low pressure is one of the triggers for emergence from the egg sac,” he said.
One female sac can contain hundreds of spiderlings which can lead to mass infestations, however, Lizzie Lowe, another arachnologist, explained that because baby spiders are “highly cannibalistic,” they quickly devour each other and their numbers thin.
Nonetheless, highly arachnophobic individuals would be frightened of even one such spider taking up residence in a corner of their domiciles and an infestation would drive them from their homes.
Source: Mindy Weisberger, Live Science, February 4, 2021.
