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Tag Archives: Garden spider babies

Exploding spiders

07 Saturday May 2022

Posted by sconzani in spiders

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Araneus diadematus, British spiders, Garden spider, Garden spider babies

Tiny balls of baby spiders like this one make the news every year, with headlines like ‘Millions of “exploding” yellow baby spiders invade Britain’ (Mirror, June 2015).

220507 Araneus diadematus (1)

Of course, the spiders aren’t actually invading Britain – these are the common Garden spiders (Araneus diadematus) that can be found stringing their webs from every available bush and shrub. And, of course, they don’t actually explode – they normally huddle into a tight ball but, if you get too close, they rapidly run out in all directions, to try to protect themselves. As soon as they feel safe, they huddle back together again. They’re actually very cute!

220507 Araneus diadematus (2)

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130/366 Spiderlings

09 Saturday May 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, spiders, spring

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Tags

Araneus diadematus, British spiders, Garden spider, Garden spider babies, spiderlings, spiders

At first sight, from several feet away, I thought this splodge on the side of a building was a dollop of bird poo … but then I noticed it was moving. So, of course, I immediately got out my camera and peered closer.

200509 garden spiderlings (1)

They were spider babies, hundreds of them, of the species Araneus diadematus, commonly known as Garden spiders. Both as spiderlings and as adults, these are completely harmless, though, as so often happens, several of the trashy daily newspapers have, in the past, vilified these bunches of babies with such headlines as ‘Woman’s horror as hundreds of tiny yellow spiders erupt from a nest in her back garden’ and ‘Millions of “exploding” yellow baby spiders invade Britain’.

200509 garden spiderlings (2)

When they’ve grown to adult size, these little cuties will look like those I photographed for my November 2017 blog post Wearing a diadem. You can read more about the Garden spider on the British Arachnological Society’s website.

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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