Spider season! Ten species you’ll see scuttling across Britain’s carpets and lawns this autumn — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Spiders are not actually more numerous in autumn; they hatched in spring and have simply grown to maximum size, making them more obvious, according to Dave Clarke of the Zoological Society of London.
- The large, hairy spiders found indoors at this time of year are typically teenage males lost 'emotionally, geographically' while searching for mates, per Dr Sara Goodacre of the University of Nottingham.
- Ten British species are profiled, ranging from the cardinal spider — the UK's largest native spider with a 14cm leg span — to the zebra jumping spider, just 5-9mm long but capable of jumping 10 times its body length.
- The noble false widow, routinely dubbed 'Britain's most dangerous spider,' is actually solitary and non-aggressive; confirmed bites are rare and the reaction is comparable to a nettle or wasp sting, per Goodacre, who calls 'the level of hysteria the worst bit.'
- The false wolf spider (also called the Nosferatu spider for its vampire-like markings) is a Mediterranean species that has only recently arrived in the UK and is increasingly being spotted around London; it relies on human-built structures to survive British winters, Clarke says.
- Centrally heated homes are generally too dry and too short of food for most spider species, so gently relocating one with an upturned glass and a piece of card is entirely reasonable — 'It's your home. You decide who you share it with,' Goodacre says.
Why it matters: The 'Britain's most dangerous spider' label attached to the noble false widow is wildly overstated — confirmed bites are rarer than the panic they generate, and the reaction is no worse than a nettle sting. More materially, the Mediterranean false wolf spider has only recently colonized the UK and can't survive British winters without human-built shelter, pointing to a quietly shifting urban spider population that householders are likely to keep noticing indoors.
Ask SkimNews
