Cave dwelling spider

[C_Strike]

Hmm....i found this little guy in a cave near Bath in the UK...any1 know what it is?

Ay info would be great

 

[cacoseraph]

wow!
creepy looking spider, good job!

no idea... but that certainly looks like it came out of some ancient british cave (that is quite possibly haunted)

cool pic

 

[NRF]

Great spider! It´s a Meta menardi (though indistinguishable from the rarer Meta bourneti).

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/windsor.html
read also
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1396706.stm

I remember whe this news came out and reached Finland as well.

 

[NRF]

And please put it back. It doesn´t like light and it needs special moisty habitats, and I don´t think it will do well in captivity.

 

[C_Strike]

hehe sounds like a deal...it'l be back in there this sunday... its actually doin very well i captivity, i have been keepig it in a dark, cold area... ad have been misting it with water thats at an approx temp to the cave it was from..
its a non aggressive speice, ad they where bigger than the 5cm mark for sure, my specimin is a comparitively small 1 to the others in there.. but they were quite abundant...
very interesting..
thanks for responding

 

[evilarachnid]

That is a very cool looking spider.

 

[C_Strike]

lol, yup... very scary looking... try being in the dark with many on all the walls around you...hehe
NOT for arachnophobes...i have to tell people about them, *being spider mad* but i wait til we get a lil' bit deeper into the cave before..
they only live within about 5-8metres within the cave eterence, which is i fact oly passable by crawling...but theyr quite abundant there. i believe i saw them in some small cave at Bowood estate too *big country estate with lots of land* they were very similair at least.

 

[NRF]

One interesting thing with this species is also that slugs is included as a regular part of its diet, at least for the larger specimens. This is not known in other spiders species. The studies of its diet do not tell how they catch the snails. The spiders also catches myriapods. I have seen them feeding on mosquitoes and isopods in a cave in Finland.

 

[Scolopendra55]

Neat spider

 

[Malhavoc's]

You have to love the adoptations nature makes to survive in extreme conditions.

 

[paleocaver]

A new cave I discovered this weekend has loads of M. ovalis (I'm in the USA). Cool spider indeed. Was because of it I found this board today.

Scott