Giant spiders the size of rats making a comeback in UK

Comments

• llamatron@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m sorry what? We have a native spider the size of a rat? Why did I not know this. This is important information.

  I am never leaving the house again.

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  • Emperor@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Plot twist: they’re already in your house.

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    • j4k3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      (I’m hacking around with Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead at the moment) Noooooo!!!

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  • ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I saw one on the wall when I was staying just outside Guildford. I was in disbelief that I would see such a thing in Europe.

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  • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I thought they looked like the dock spiders we have in Minnesota, turns out they’re the same thing. Utterly terrifying but completely harmless.

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    • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Noooo reading this I thought I was safe being all the way over here :( whyyyy

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  • j4yt33@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I don’t think you’re likely to ever come across one if you don’t live in a lake, they have only been identified in a handful of places.

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    • tobogganablaze@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They usually are found around the shore or river banks only walking onto the water for hunting. The only spider you will mostly find in a lake a diving bell spiders.

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  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    they’re apparently 7cm wide including the legs, so more like the size of a mouse and even then it’s being a bit generous.

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  • floofloof@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Maybe it’s a baby rat. I’m going to believe it’s a baby rat.

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  • cheddar@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They hunt fish. There’s no need to worry if you aren’t fish.

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    • llamatron@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If only arachnophobia were so logical

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• j4yt33@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Wikipedia says “70 mm including the legs” btw. So not even close to the size of a rat

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They are the size of rats the size of spiders.

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    • j4yt33@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Can’t argue with that

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  • TorJansson@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Doesn’t matter, arm thyself with a flamethrower anyway

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  • Emperor@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Could be a baby rat.

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• ns1@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Always uplifting to see a struggling native species doing well. Hope I get to see one of these beauties up close one day, shame they are still limited to just a few locations.

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  • tal@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    And it was that very summer, when taking a leisurely swim in one of Britain’s lakes, that ns1 got his wish, his face surfacing directly underneath an alarmed seven-centimeter giant raft spider on the hunt.

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    • ns1@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Don’t think I’d want to subject the poor spider to that, however funny it would be for onlookers!

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• flamingos@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Time to push the country into the sun.

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• apotheotic@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That’s so nice! I’m so happy for them! Is there a map of exactly where they’re making a comeback so I can avoid those places particularly!

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• 10_0@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I have a large garden spider in my house, me and it have a policy, out of sight out of deaths reach. If a spider the size of that thumbnail enters my house, there will be no places to hide, I will kos. Besides there are no rats here only flies.

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• NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Awesome

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• j4yt33@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  No

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• HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Wet Australia

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• tal@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_raft_spider

  In October 2010 the first introduction of a great raft spider population into a new site in the UK was carried out in a joint project by Natural England and Suffolk Wildlife Trust and supported by a grant from the BBC Wildlife Fund. The project saw around 3000 spiderlings bred and reared by Dr. Helen Smith and the John Innes Centre, 1600 of which were released into suitable dykes at the Suffolk Wildlife Trust Castle Marshes nature reserve. The site is part of the Suffolk Broads and lies 50 kilometres (31 mi) downstream, from Redgrave and Lopham fen, between Lowestoft and Beccles. Work was carried out to improve the ditch network at the site to prepare for the reintroduction and provide optimal habitat for the new spider population.

  Dr. Helen Smith knew that the one great problem with the UK was an insufficient number of giant spiders running around, and she intended to remedy that.

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• pseudo@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  But can they eat rats?

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  • Mex@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    a power struggle between the spiders and rats begins, with each slowly growing bigger to outpower each other, years pass and we have dog sized spider and rats, and dog kind joins in… a few years later we have cow sized spiders,rats, and dogs… it never ends.

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    • pseudo@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      And when day if rats and spiders breed, I will be remember in History as the personn who reintroduce dragons in my country 😨

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  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    which can grow to the size of rats and hunts fish

    Sufficient info for me

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    • pseudo@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Well if it can eat rats, I might try to introduce this specie in my niehbourhood.

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  • Emperor@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It can eat them but catching and killing might be trickier.

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• Wahots@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Christ, now I know my my ancestors moved to the US, haha.

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  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Moving from the UK to the US to escape scary animals is an… interesting choice lol

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    • GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      At least they didn’t get sent to Australia!

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    • tal@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The hedgehog can, when suitably agitated, get mighty feisty. Mighty feisty indeed.

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    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Have they seen the badgers we get over here??

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  • tobogganablaze@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I hope it wasn’t to try to escape fishing spiders because the US has 9 from the same genus.

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  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    and how would that explain people moving to Australia

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• Wooki@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Thats not a spider, this is a spider

  points to all of australia.

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• SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Where’s saint Patrick when we need him?

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