Large male house spider Swindon

[MattPrince]

Here's a couple of shots of a large (just over 15mm total body length) male tegenaria species captured in Swindon, which I assume is not far from the gigantea/saeva contact zone, so there's a good chance its either, or even a hybrid (do arachnids ever show hybrid vigour? this fella is just over the maximum quoted size for his kind).

I took it into the office in an old Laphroiag tin, and he caused quite a stir when I opened the tin to show everyone and he had sneakily stuck to the back of the lid and lept across my hand, running amok briefly but spectacularly...



Regards,
Matt

[htcdude]

I love these. We had several in the house last year. Last year my wife heard one walking across the metal base of our lampstand on the other side of the room. her face was a picture when she saw it

Nige

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by MattPrince

I took it into the office in an old Laphroiag tin, and he caused quite a stir when I opened the tin to show everyone and he had sneakily stuck to the back of the lid and lept across my hand, running amok briefly but spectacularly...

Lol! I can imagine the scene with some folks.
They can certainly get some people to move swiftly.

The one in the loo at work is called Boris.

[MattPrince]

Sadly, try as I might, I couldn't get an ident out of him. Getting the right angle on the palps is a nightmare on these things - you'd think that being big they'd be easy to identify.. not so imho.

So he's going back to where he came from, well almost where he came from, think the landlady will be a bit miffed if I put him back in her bedroom

[sebastianbawn]

Judging from what I can see of the palps, I would guess at Tegenaria saeva

[MattPrince]

That's interesting Sebastian - using both Roberts and the British Spiders id guide, and a x30 fieldscope, I wasn't happy to put it down to either. I found it difficult to accurately judge the angle of the tegellum, and a comparitive description of its width - requires comparative material

Regards,
Matt