Did you know that spiders’ eyes gleam like tiny diamonds in torchlight?
Or that some huntsman spiders are social and live in family groups?
These were just some of the fascinating discoveries at our night-time spider walk in Gordon Craig Park, Wodonga.
Our adventures were guided by Eathan Douglas, a keen arachnologist and environmental science student from Melbourne, and Wodonga local Craig Loechel, who takes incredible macro photographs, including of spiders.
The exploring begins
Our quest started in the fading daylight with a challenge from our hosts to find a spider on a smooth barked tree near the playground.
It took us a while! The two-tailed spider was near invisible as it matched the colour of the bark and wrapped against the surface.
We often see the egg sacs of spiders in this genus, Tamopsis, hanging on a silken thread, like a pearl, on tree bark locally, but it takes an even keener eye to see these spiders.
Images: Can we spy the two-tailed spider? These masters of camouflage are often hiding in plain sight!
Into the dark
After the daylight disappeared, by torchlight we followed Eathan’s tips for where and how to look as we explored the park. We noted how a head torch can be handy for noticing spider eye shine, webs in varying shapes and sizes were investigated, and we paid close attention to gaps and holes in the bark of trees, as well as to movement within the leaf litter.
The park path, plants and tree trunks were briefly lit by torch beams in turn and excited calls rang out … “Over here!”, “I’ve seen something”, “There’s a huntsman” and plenty of exclamations of “What’s that?!?”.
“It’s so fun to be out in nature after dark”, noted one of the enthusiastic attendees.
Images below: Eathan in action identifying a spider in the leaf litter. Others investigating the bark of a tree with torches, seeking spiders.
Some of our finds
Eathan has a particular interest in huntsman spiders and found many for us to admire and learn a little about.
Looking closely, Eathan noted some of the identifying features as we compared the species.
Huntsman spider species we saw during the walk included:
- Beautiful badge huntsman, Neosparassus calligaster
- A species of grey huntsman, Isopeda echuca
- Murray banded huntsman, Holconia murrayensis
- Social huntsman, Delena cancerides
More about local Huntsman spiders
Eathan’s insights
In Australia we have about 150 species of huntsmen that have been named, with plenty of other unnamed species awaiting description.
There are more than 7 species of huntsman in and around Wodonga, these species vary in size, habitat preference, and colouration.
Most species in the Wodonga area prefer living underneath the flaking bark of trees – grey huntsmen, banded huntsmen, social huntsmen, and the Victorian huntsman all like living this way, while badge huntsmen prefer tall grass and shrubs.
There are a couple badge huntsman species you might find living in your garden, namely Neosparassus calligaster, the beautiful badge huntsman and Neosparassus diana, Diana’s badge huntsman.
Diana’s badge huntsmen are orange with two yellow “eyebrow” markings, while the beautiful badge huntsman has vibrant blue bands underneath their knees and yellow bands down their legs with a general brown and mottled colouration.
Images below by Craig – Beautiful badge huntsman spider (eating a caterpillar), and the underside of the same species, showing off her ‘badge’.
Many spider walk participants took the opportunity to get some photos of our finds. Craig provided tips on getting photos, including how he achieves his macro shots using focus stacking and his flash diffuser to capture exceptional detail, plus ways to improve both phone and camera shots.
Images below: Craig using his special photography setup (that’s a flash diffuser you can see) to capture incredible spider portraits – and the amazing result!
Citizen science in action
You don’t have to be able to identify your spider (or other nature) finds to potentially contribute to biodiversity records.
By adding photos to citizen science platforms or apps like iNaturalist, for example, you can be assisted by others to confirm or improve on the identity of your find.
During this session alone, we collectively contributed 44 records across 22 species (of which 10 species were spiders – a couple were the spiders’ prey and other fun finds!).
Take a look – you can check them all out on iNaturalist Australia here.
More spider night walk opportunities
If you’d like to come along next time, be sure to keep an eye out for events on the Wodonga Landcare website, in our newsletter or Facebook page.
