This is not a wind up.. Strange spider, no ID..

spiderboy · #1 (**permalink**) 11-07-2011, 09:42 PM

I was wondering if anyone would be able to assist me in identifying a spider. I do realize this is going to sound like a wind up, and i wish i had a picture of it but this was a couple of years ago since the sighting. I didn't think much of it at the time, even though it was certainly not a spider i have seen before i just assumed it was a peculiar variety I wasn't aware of and carried on with my gardening. I recent have been looking at UK spider species, and cant find anything remotely like it, in shape maybe but colouring no....

now this is the part that sounds like a wind up, but it was blue and red, but very bright vivid blue and red, there may have been some white on it also from my memory, but mainly blue and red. It appeared from under a small flag stone, as i was removing weeds from a patch of soil, and was probably slightly bigger than a 5 pence coin. I realise the spider i have described sounds like the spider that bite Peter Parker in the Spiderman films, but i am being genuinely honest about what i saw.
Any information would be great, it could be a UK species i just haven't come across in my research so far and i hope this is the case, so replies would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks, Chris (West Yorkshire)

spiderboy · #2 (**permalink**) 11-07-2011, 09:44 PM

Forgot to add... it had a bulbous silk sack..(not sure that's the technical term).

faceler · #3 (**permalink**) 18-07-2011, 10:13 PM

Hi, I joined just to answer this question, although I may stick around.
Is this the spider you were looking for? I too saw one a few years back, in Portsmouth. This is the Peacock Spider:
http://ih2.redbubble.net/work.639172...ing-spider.jpg
This is the only spider fitting the description you gave, although it is a bit smaller. Not sure if that helped, if not, sorry. I'll keep looking.

No.9 Spider · #4 (**permalink**) 18-07-2011, 11:16 PM

Peacock spider or Gliding spider Maratus volans - native to Australia but could be a stray around Portsmouth, less likely in Yorkshire I'd have thought.
A possibility is one of the Salticidae as some can have a red/blue iridescence to them in certain light.