DRACULA, VAN HELSING, AND GIANT SPIDERS IN THE CATHEDRAL

Official movie poster for the 1979 horror film Nosferatu the Vampyre (© Werner Herzog Filmproduktion/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)

A few weeks ago, I finally found time to watch a horror film that I had long been planning to see. Directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski in spellbinding form as the title character, the film in question was Nosferatu the Vampyre, the very stylish 1979 West German art-house remake of the cult 1922 German silent movie Nosferatu (starring Max Schreck), which in turn was loosely based upon Bram Stoker's classic epistolary vampire novel Dracula.

Little did I think while viewing it that only a short time later I would be investigating a fascinating but hitherto-obscure cryptozoological conundrum tucked away within the pages of the selfsame famous novel that had inspired this film – but that is precisely what happened, providing further confirmation for what I have always known, especially when dealing with mystery animals. Always expect the unexpected, and you will never be disappointed.

So here is that recent investigation of mine, presented here as a ShukerNature exclusive – the ever-curious case of Dracula, Van Helsing, and Giant Spiders in the Cathedral.

Bram Stoker in 1906 (public domain)

Many years ago, while reading Stoker's Dracula, which was originally published in 1897, I was intrigued by the following short but memorable aside spoken by the eminent vampire hunter Prof. Abraham Van Helsing to his former student Dr John Seward:

Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps?

At the time of reading it, however, I simply assumed that this extraordinary statement was nothing more than the product of Stoker's very fertile, and febrile, imagination. Consequently, I swiftly dismissed it from my mind, never considering for a moment that it may actually have been inspired by reality.

And then, just a few days ago, I received a fascinating email from a correspondent that has incited me to revisit this brief passage from Dracula and reassess it in a much more enlightened manner.

Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing in the 2004 Universal Pictures movie Van Helsing (© Universal Pictures, included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)

Received by me on 27 June 2017, the illuminating email in question was from James Nicholls of Perth, Australia, who very kindly informed me that in 1821 two separate periodicals, the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany (vol. 88, July-December, p. 268) and The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines (vol. 9, April-October, p. 485), had published near-identical versions of a short but fascinating account (referred to hereafter in this ShukerNature blog article of mine as the 1821 account), concerning giant oil-drinking spiders lurking amid the shadows of two major European edifices of religious worship. Here is the version that appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany:

The sexton of the church of St Eustace, at Paris, amazed to find frequently a particular lamp extinct early, and yet the oil consumed only, sat up several nights to perceive the cause. At length he discovered that a spider of surprising size came down the cord to drink the oil. A still more extraordinary instance of the same kind occurred during the year 1751, in the Cathedral of Milan. A vast spider was observed there, which fed on the oil of the lamps. M. Morland, of the Academy of Sciences, has described this spider, and furnished a drawing of it. It weighed four pounds, and was sent to the Emperor of Austria, and is now in the Imperial Museum at Vienna.

Needless to say, reading through this remarkable account, one is irresistibly reminded of Van Helsing's comment as penned by Stoker in Dracula – so much so, in fact, that surely there can be little if any doubt that this was indeed Stoker's source of inspiration for that comment, especially as this account was published 76 years before Stoker's novel first appeared in print.

Presumably, Stoker either misremembered the locations given for these stupendous spiders in the account, or he purposefully changed them in order to make it look as if Van Helsing had only retained a hazy, incompletely accurate memory of the account. Both of these possibilities could satisfactorily explain why he cited a Spanish church rather than either the French one or Milan Cathedral as named in the account.

Exquisite 19^th-Century illustration of Milan Cathedral, capturing very effectively its immense size – big enough, surely, to conceal even the most monstrous of spiders amid the shadows embracing its upper regions during the hours of daylight? (public domain)

But might there be any factual substance to the above account, or was it too merely a work of fiction? Initially, the concept of any kind of oil-drinking spider, irrespective of body size considerations for the time being, seemed ludicrous. After all, kerosene would surely be toxic to such creatures. But when I began to research the account, I began to wonder.

For I discovered that back when it was published, during the early 1800s, and especially during the even earlier time period named by it during which the giant cathedral spider of Milan was reportedly discovered, i.e. during the early 1750s, the oil commonly used in lamps was derived from whale blubber or rendered animal fat, and therefore could conceivably be nutritious for spiders.

Moreover, spiders typically imbibe their sustenance in liquid form anyway; on account of the narrowness of their gut, they cannot digest solid food, so after immobilising or killing their prey with injected venom or enshrouding silk, they pump digestive enzymes into it from their midgut, then suck the prey's now-liquefied tissues into their gut. So the oil-drinking proclivity attributed to these great spiders is not as implausible as one might otherwise assume.

My book Mirabilis (© Dr Karl Shuker)

But what about their prodigious magnitude? My book Mirabilis; A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013) contains an exceedingly comprehensive chapter documenting a varied array of giant spider reports originating from all over the world. Within that chapter (as well as within a ShukerNature blog article on giant spiders excerpted and expanded from it - click here), I discussed as follows the crucial physiological flaw inherent in all speculation concerning the plausibility (or otherwise)  of such creatures:

The fundamental problem when considering giant spiders is not one of zoogeography but rather one of physiology. Their tracheal respiratory system (consisting of a network of minute tubes carrying oxygen to every cell in the body) prevents insects from attaining huge sizes in the modern world, because the tracheae could not transport oxygen efficiently enough inside insects of giant stature. During the late Carboniferous and early Permian Periods, 300 million years ago, huge dragonflies existed, but back in those primeval ages the atmosphere's oxygen level was far greater than it is today, thereby compensating for the tracheal system's inefficiency.

Some of the largest known spiders also utilise a tracheal respiratory system, whereas smaller spiders employ flattened organs of passive respiration called book lungs. Yet neither system is sufficiently competent to enable spiders to attain enormous sizes, based upon current knowledge at least. So if a giant spider does thrive…it must have evolved a radically different, much more advanced respiratory system, not just a greatly enlarged body.

Also, giant spiders are very much the embodiment of primeval bogey beasts, created both consciously, by parents to playfully scare their children and to make them aware of the potential danger posed by various real but highly venomous species, and unconsciously, by the human imagination working overtime in relation to creatures whose potential danger is buried very deep within the fundamental human psyche. Surely it can be no coincidence that giant spiders, almost invariably of evil intent, appear in the traditional folklore and mythology of very different cultures all around the world.

Keep away from spiders, kids, or this might happen to you! (public domain)

Then again, outrageous journalistic hokum was extremely common in the West during much of the 19^th Century, i.e. when the 1821 account was published, so perhaps that is all that it ever was, with no basis whatsoever in fact. After all, elsewhere on ShukerNature I have already documented such arachnological absurdities as the deadly giant siren-singing spider of Paris, France (click here), and the giant flying tomb spider of Rome, Italy (click here), both of which debuted in highly-suspect 19^th-Century newspaper reports.

Since receiving the 1821 account from James Nicholls, I have conducted some appreciable online research in a quest for supplementary details appertaining to its contents, and have uncovered a few additional coverages of it, some back in the 1820s and others from modern times. However, all of them confine themselves almost exclusively to the details already provided in the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany and The Atheneum.

Indeed, the most informative version that I have accessed so far, entitled 'The King of the Spiders', remains the one that appeared in The Atheneum, so here it is in full:

'The King of the Spiders' article from Vol. 9 (April-October 1821) of The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines (public domain)

As can be seen, in addition to the standard details present in other versions, it also actually contains Morand's own verbal description (in French) of the giant Milan Cathedral spider. This translates into English as:

The body, the colour of soot, rounded, terminated in a point, with the back and the limbs hairy, weighed four pounds.

Two of the most notable 20^th-Century publications to include mention of it are English spider authority W.S. Bristowe's A Book of Spiders (1947), and eminent British zoologist Prof. John L. Cloudsley-Thompson's authoritative work Spiders, Scorpions, Centipedes and Mites: The Ecology and Natural History of Woodlice, Myriapods, and Arachnids (1958). Worth noting is Bristowe's line of delightfully tongue-in-cheek speculation that he pursued in his coverage of the events detailed in the 1821 account:

I suspect the sexton [of St Eustace's Church in Paris] was under grave suspicion of borrowing the oil himself until he reported seeing [the giant spider stealing it].

Although he never stated it overtly, to my mind Bristowe's wording indicates that he entertained the possibility that the sexton had invented the entire giant spider story in order to conceal the fact that it was he who was stealing the oil. Who knows – perhaps the sexton had been aware of the report of the great spider from Milan Cathedral, and so was inspired by it to create a version of his own in order to hide his nefarious involvement in the oil's disappearance in his own place of worship.

Retitled as Spiders, reprint of W.S. Bristowe's A Book of Spiders (© King Penguin Books, reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)

Sadly, the 1821 account tantalises rather than teaches its readers, by offering more questions than answers. Who, for instance, was Morland (or Morand, as so named in The Atheneum's version of events), who produced a drawing of the great spider of Milan Cathedral from 1751, and where is that drawing today? Does it still survive? I wonder if Morland (or Morand) could have been the English animal artist George Morland (1763-1804). And which museum is being referred to in the 1821 account as 'the Imperial Museum at Vienna'? However, it may well be Austria's Imperial Treasury Museum, which is housed at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, and contains many secular and ecclesiastical items spanning more than a millennium in European history.

In any event, I deem it highly unlikely that a preserved 4-lb spider exists in any museum collection within Austria – after all, as Bristowe pithily observed in his own coverage, it would be as big as a pekingese dog! Having said that, I would love to be proved wrong, so if anyone reading this article has knowledge of where such a specimen might be held today if it ever did once exist, I would greatly welcome details.

Nevertheless, having reported two separate specimens of giant spider means that the 1821 account is guaranteed to be of very appreciable interest and importance to cryptid seekers anyway. This makes it all the more surprising that (at least as far as I'm aware) its documentation in this present ShukerNature blog article of mine is the very first time that it has ever appeared in any strictly cryptozoological context.

Face to face – a (very) close encounter of the arachnid kind! (Vicky Nunn/public domain)

Now that it has very belatedly done so, however, let us hope that it elicits further details concerning those spiders of stature documented within it, and perhaps concerning additional specimens too.

I wish to offer my most sincere and grateful thanks to James Nicholls for kindly bringing the 1821 account to my attention. Moreover, in his same email to me, James also referred to a second, very different, but equally astonishing mystery beast report that I had not previously encountered - so I duly investigated that one too, and I have now documented it here on ShukerNature.

Finally: how could any article inspired by Stoker's Gothic literary masterpiece be considered at an end without having included at least one appearance from a member of the undead fanged fraternity – so here it is:

A vampire from the modern school of bloodsuckers, complete with fashionably-unkempt rock star looks, locks, and designer stubble, but clearly retaining the old school's fangs, ferocity, and mainstream malevolence – not a sparkle, shimmer, or outbreak of whimpering fangless adolescent angst to be seen anywhere here! (© David de la Luz/Wikipedia CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

THE HOBBIT ACTOR AND A REAL-LIFE SHELOB – OR SOMETHING PRETTY DARN CLOSE?

With my very own Shelob! (credit: Dr Karl Shuker)

British actor Dominic Monaghan has starred in many films and TV series, but is probably best-known for his role as the hobbit Merry in Peter Jackson’s spectacular ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (LOTR) trilogy of movies, based upon J.R.R. Tolkien’s monumental fantasy epic.

However, following a tip-off from a member of my regular pub quiz team (thanks Mark!; who said that pub quizzes aren’t educational?!), earlier this year I came upon a very intriguing online report previously unknown to me that suggested Dominic might have been taking his LOTR role even more seriously than expected. In LOTR, two of Merry’s fellow hobbits, Frodo and Sam, experience a life-threatening encounter with Shelob – a colossal spider. Yet whereas Shelob was fictional, the media report, which was reproduced on several websites, claimed that Dominic was planning to launch a 12-man expedition in search of a real-life mega-spider that, if proven to exist, would be the world’s largest.

Dominic Monaghan in his LOTR role as the hobbit Merry (credit: New Line Cinema Productions)

According to this report (click here to view it), which was written by Alexandru Stan and published on InOut Star’s website on 12 March 2008, the spider in question was called the hercules baboon spider, measured 14-15 inches across, and, of particular interest, was known only from a single specimen obtained in Nigeria during the early 1900s, which is now preserved in alcohol at London’s Natural History Museum.

As the Life Sciences Consultant for Guinness World Records (formerly known as The Guinness Book of Records), I am naturally well aware that the current record-holder as the world’s largest species of spider by mass is the goliath bird-eating spider Theraphosa blondi. This nocturnal burrowing species, native to wet swamps and marshy areas in the mountain rainforests of northeastern South America, boasts a leg span of up to 11 in (the diameter of a dinner plate!), and can weigh over 6 oz.

Indeed, the biggest specimen of this species on record was a 12-year-old captive female called Rosi, which sported a body length alone of 119.4 mm (4.7 in), i.e. not including its leg length, and weighed an astonishing 175 g (6.17 oz) – which is almost as heavy as six house sparrows! Consequently, any spider that allegedly exceeds these dramatic dimensions, and, as a bonus, is also virtually unknown to science, is definitely going to attract my undivided attention!

An adult female specimen of the goliath bird-eating spider Theraphosa blondi

Eager to learn more, in case Guinness’s existing record for the largest spider species by mass needed to be amended, I lost no time in researching this subject personally and also contacting a number of likely sources of further information, including the Natural History Museum itself, as well as a number of other institutions, organisations, and individuals. Over the next few weeks, a welter of information came my way, the most informative of which can be summarised as follows.

Firstly, I discovered to my surprise that in spite of the report’s claim that only a single specimen of hercules baboon spider existed, there seemed to be a veritable embarrassment of specimens out there in the pet trade, and there was even a plentiful supply of videos posted on YouTube of what were claimed to be hercules baboon spiders. Something, clearly, was amiss here – but what?

After learning of my desire to discover as much as I could regarding this enigmatic species, palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish, who shares my own interest in cryptozoological matters, sent me the following illuminating email on 16 March 2011:

"It is implicated by spider people that the things now being called 'hercules baboon spiders' are actually nothing of the sort (they're actually king baboon spiders), and that the animal that really should go with this name is indeed only known from the type specimen."

Pursuing this promising lead, I discovered that the ‘real’ hercules baboon spider is Hysterocrates hercules, which is genuinely known only from its type specimen or holotype – a female collected by a Lieutenant Abadie at Jebba in what was then Upper Niger, now Nigeria. Characterised by a black cuticle covered with a thick coating of dark olive-brown hairs, and shining with a greyish silky sheen under reflected light, as well as by having the fourth leg unthickened, this unique specimen is held at the Natural History Museum, and its species was formally described in the 14 November 1899 issue of the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London by none other than renowned British zoologist Reginald I. Pocock.

As for the so-called hercules baboon spider specimens in the pet trade and on YouTube, these pretenders to the throne of H. hercules are indeed specimens of the related but smaller king baboon spider Pelinobius muticus (aka Citharischius crawshayi, a junior synonym), which is an East African species with a leg span of up to 8 in. So there was the first riddle concerning the hercules baboon spider duly solved.

The hercules imposter – a king baboon spider Pelinobius muticus

On 21 April, I received another very insightful email, this time from Richard Gallon, the administrator of the British Tarantula Society Study Group:

"I can confidently state that Pocock’s holotype specimen of Hysterocrates hercules (which I have measured and examined for forthcoming taxonomic papers) does not even come close to members of the genus Theraphosa in terms of leg-span or body mass.

"Pelinobius muticus females are large and bulky, but not as large as H. hercules or any Theraphosa. Indeed there are several South American genera (e.g. Pamphobeteus, Sericopelma, Lasiodora etc.) which are bigger than these African taxa."

Judging from this, Dominic’s notion that H. hercules may well be the world’s biggest spider appeared to be in error – an assumption comprehensively confirmed when I received on 21 May an email from Dr George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum containing the following crucial details:

"With regard to the West African baboon spider Hysterocrates hercules, it is certainly very large, but the heaviest spider known is undoubtedly the 175 gram [6.17 oz] female Theraphosa blondi listed by Guinness, and the largest in terms of legspan is the giant huntsman Heteropoda maxima, from caves in Laos, which has an accurately measured maximum legspan of 300 mm [12 in]...Any claims of larger spider specimens remain to be proven - and I don't think that any baboon spider is likely to displace the current champions!"

On 3 June, Jan Beccaloni, the museum’s arachnid curator, also emailed me, kindly enclosing some information received from fellow arachnologist and theraphosid specialist Ray Gabriel from the British Tarantula Society, who stated that H. hercules is only about two-thirds the size of T. blondi.

So there it was – everyone was agreed that H. hercules was neither the heaviest species of spider nor even the species with the greatest leg span. And that seemed to be the end of the matter, until, in a subsequent email, Dr Beccaloni suggested a highly entertaining means of publicising this former controversy – by staging at the Natural History Museum a filmed comparison by volume of the type specimen of H. hercules with a suitably sizeable specimen of T. blondi, supervised by a member of the Guinness World Records (GWR) team. Needless to say, I considered this to be an excellent idea, and passed it on at once to the editor of GWR, Craig Glenday, who thought so too, and was happy to act personally in the capacity of official adjudicator.

And so it was that my original investigation of H. hercules ultimately led to a filmed ‘Battle of the Spiders’ weigh-in at the Natural History Museum later last month (June 2011), conducted by Dr George Beccaloni and witnessed by Craig Glenday for GWR. Utilising Archimedes’ Principle of liquid displacement as a means of accurately determining the volume of the challenger (the H. hercules holotype) and the defender (a hefty adult female T. blondi called Tracy, a long-deceased pet of Jan Beccaloni) as both were preserved in alcohol, the two species’ rival claims to the title of the world’s heaviest spider were finally put to the test.

The Natural History Museum’s online press release, containing a video of this historic arachnological bout, can be viewed here.

And the result? Tracy’s volume was found to be more than double that of the H. hercules holotype. In short, a straight knock-out, with T. blondi the undisputed heavyweight spider champion, retaining its title with ease.

Even so, as a nonetheless respectably (albeit not superlatively) large species yet still known only from a single specimen, H. hercules retains an air of mystique. Moreover, Dominic Monaghan never did succeed in launching an expedition to look for it. Consequently, an excellent way to bring this investigation to a satisfactory close would be for an intrepid spider seeker to pursue the hercules baboon spider in the field, as the rediscovery of this long-lost semi-Shelob is certainly long overdue! Any takers?

A model of the LOTR’s mega-spider, Shelob (credit: Dr Karl Shuker)

I wish to thank everyone who assisted me during my researches into this fascinating case, in particular Dr George and Jan Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum, Ray Gabriel and Richard Gallon from the British Tarantula Society, Craig Glenday at Guinness World Records, and Dr Darren Naish for their most welcome expertise and interest.

TWO FRENCH MYSTERIES OF THE ARACHNOLOGICAL KIND

Here are two arachnological anomalies - one very old but only very recently solved by me, the other very new and currently still unsolved. Both hail from France, and each involves a species of unusual or unexpected colouration, given its location. Neither of them has previously been documented in the cryptozoological literature, so any opinions and additional information would be most welcome.

THE WHITE SCORPION OF CETTE MOUNTAIN

That was the title of a short article penned by Emile Bonnet MPNS, which was published in June 1884 within a journal entitled The Naturalist’s World (vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 94-95). As I happen to own a copy of this particular volume, purchased by me during the late 1980s, I have scanned the relevant pages, which are reproduced below (please click scan in order to enlarge to readable size):



As can be seen, the scorpion in question is referred to by Bonnet as Scorpio montis sete (translating as ‘scorpion of Sete’s mountain’), but no such trinomial name exists today. Nor does any binomial, not even one that links monte and sete to yield montesete (in earlier days, some faux trinomials were created by splitting names that were subsequently joined back together to yield binomials).

Sete, or, precisely, Sète, is a seaside town within the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon, southern France; it changed its name from Cette to Sète on 20 January 1928, and is built upon and around the mountain of Mont St Clair.

Over the years that have passed since purchasing the volume containing Bonnet’s article, I have made several attempts to track down any additional details regarding this mountain’s pallid but reputedly dangerous scorpion, and have contacted a number of arachnological experts concerning it, but all to no avail – until very recently.

Prior to then, the most informative response to my enquiries had come from Prof. John L. Cloudsley-Thompson, Professor Emeritus at London’s University College, who is a renowned authority on arachnids, as well as desert organisms and a range of other zoological specialities. Writing to me on 7 April 1990 after reading the copy of Bonnet’s article that I had sent to him earlier, Prof. Cloudsley-Thompson offered the following thoughts:

“Re Scorpio montis sete. This species is not cited in modern literature and is clearly not valid. The illustration shows a species of Buthus not Scorpio (slender claws), so B. occitanus must be the answer since it is the only buthid in France. It is venomous like all Buthidae but the same species in N. Africa is said to be much more dangerous. M. Bonnet was clearly exaggerating. I wonder whether the ‘white’ scorpion was actually a newly moulted individual whose cuticle had not yet hardened? I was once asked about a white earwig in a BBC nature programme and that must have been the answer in that case.”

Buthus occitanus (Álvaro Rodríguez Alberich – Wikipedia)

Buthus occitanus is known as the common yellow scorpion, on account of its widespread distribution in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, and its predominant colour. I agree entirely that a newly-moulted individual would be the likeliest explanation for a single specimen, but Bonnet described the Cette mountain scorpion as a discrete species rather than an individual, and referred to its colour as “a reddish white” rather than entirely white (or yellow, for that matter). What always baffled me most of all regarding this case, however, was Bonnet’s allegation that this scorpion “has been studied for a long time and numerous experiments have been made on its venom”, bearing in mind that there seemed to be no mention of it in the modern-day zoological literature.

The best chance of solving this mystery was to track down a copy of the publication by Dr Ange Maccary that was cited by Bonnet in his article. Unfortunately, Bonnet gave no bibliographical details other than the title, and, for a long time at least, Googling that did not call up any details.

Inevitably, with new crypto reports coming along on a regular basis, the baffling case of the white scorpion of Cette Mountain eventually slipped from my mind. But when, just a few days ago, I received the information that constitutes the second arachnological case documented here, I suddenly recalled Bonnet’s article, and decided to try yet another online search for information – and this time, finally, I achieved success!

Googling the first part of the title of Maccory’s publication was sufficient on this latest occasion not only to locate the full bibliographical reference to it, which is:

MACCORY, Ange (1810). Mémoire sur le scorpion qui se trouve sur la montagne de Cette, département de l’Hérault, son venin, et l’usage qu’on pourrait en faire en médecine. Froullé (Paris), Gabon ed. 48 pages

but also to confirm, via the following online source:

http://www.onem-france.org/scorpion/wakka.php?wiki=RegimeAlimentaire

that the Cette white scorpion, as suspected by Prof. Cloudsley-Thompson back in 1990, does indeed belong to the Languedoc-occurring species Buthus occitanus.

But one mystery surrounding this scorpion still awaits a solution – the unusual reddish-white colouration claimed by Bonnet for the Cette Mountain specimens, which is very different from the typical yellow hue for B. occitanus. Could it be, therefore, that Mont St Clair harbours a distinct colour variant of this species, which is confined to this specific location – and which, additionally, is more venomous than its normal-coloured congeners elsewhere in Languedoc?

THE YELLOW STOWAWAY SPIDER OF BRUGES

The second of this ShukerNature article’s two mystery arachnids was brought to my attention on 30 April 2011 by 18-year-old Raphaël Marliere of Bordeaux. Here is Raphaël’s eyewitness account, reproduced here with his kind permission:

“My sighting took place approximately 8 years ago in Bruges, a northwestern suburb of Bordeaux.

“A foggy winter morning, my mother was driving me to school in her old Citroen car, when all of a sudden a big yellow spider came out of the right side ventilator, on my mother's side, that is. She was kind of surprised but kept on driving as the spider went down and disappeared under the dashboard, as mysteriously as she had appeared.

“The spider in question was bright yellow, somewhat reminiscent of a banana - even though true banana spiders aren't yellow at all - and had a legspan of about 3-4 cm. I thought it may have been a freak Olios argelasius or Cheiracanthium punctorium, because of its size, but Cheiracanthium has distinctive fangs that this spider didn't have and Olios possesses markings on the legs and abdomen that were not present on the spider I saw.

“I have been breeding native spiders for several years now and I've never seen anything like this again. The only other yellow European spider that I know of is Misumena vatia, but I have an adult female in my collection and it doesn't approach the size of the car's weirdo.

“What I thought was strange at the time was the fact that the spider actually came from the ventilator and didn't get out of the car or at least seek out an exit. I guess she might have entered the car via the outside ventilator just under the windshield, but if she took the same way to go out or died trapped in the car I'll never know, for we didn't find any - yellow or otherwise - dead spider in the car.”



Olios argelasius (http://digilander.libero.it/)

After reading Raphaël’s account, I conducted an online perusal of European yellow-coloured spiders, but I was unable to match his mystery spider with any native species. O. argelasius is a huntsman spider, but as noted by Raphaël, its description does not correspond with that of his spider. Also known as the yellow sac spider, C. punctorium has very prominent chelicerae that give a venomous bite similar in potency to a wasp sting, but it only measures 15 mm or so. Misumena vatia, a crab spider, is even smaller, with a maximum length of only 10 mm. Yellow specimens of the European garden or cross spider Araneus diadematus (which is up to 20 mm long) are sometimes encountered, but they always bear this species’ characteristic cross marking upon their opisthosoma (abdomen).

Cheiracanthium punctorium (www.biolib.cz)

Consequently, I can only conclude that it was a specimen of some non-native species that had somehow found its way into the car after having earlier escaped from captivity (a private collection, perhaps, or a local zoo, nature centre, or even a pet shop?), or from some produce container originating from overseas – large (and usually decidedly hairy!) spiders emerging from bunches of imported bananas in a supermarket are regularly reported in the media.

Nevertheless, it would be excellent to obtain a conclusive taxonomic identification of this spider, so I’d greatly value any suggestions.

I SHALL GARB MYSELF IN GOSSAMER...

I shall garb myself in gossamer,
And dance amid the darkness,
Silver in the shadows of my song.

Even though I have spent more than a quarter of a century uncovering, investigating, and documenting bizarre reports from the sequestered but ever-fascinating realms of unnatural history, there are countless others still out there waiting to delight and bemuse me. One such example was very kindly brought to my attention a couple of days ago by Mark North of Dark Dorset, and is unlike any that I had previously encountered.

It was published in volume 1 (January-June 1892) of the journal Notes and Queries, Eighth Series, and was penned by John Symonds Udal, who at that time was Attorney-General and Admiralty Advocate of Fiji. This remarkable account reads as follows:

"DRESS MADE OF SPIDERS' WEBS (7 th S. xi. 445; xii. 34). MRS. WHITE mentions as a great curiosity the dress made from spiders' webs presented to the Queen by the Empress of Brazil in 1877. Most certainly it is, and to most British minds such a thing might seem incredible ; but if your correspondent were to visit Fiji which is famous for its magnificent spiders he might perhaps have less cause for wonder. The web made by the big yellow spider here is very large and strong ; but in addition to the web proper, in which flies, mosquitoes, &:., are caught, it spins a cocoonof orange-coloured, silky, gossamer-like stuff, which, if taken up in the fingers, requires quite an effort to break. This stuff I can conceive might be woven into material for a dress. Might not the dress in question have been composed of similar material made by the Brazilian spiders?

"I can hardly, even now, believe that it could have been composed of what we understand to be the ordinary spider's web. I can quite imagine, however, that such a material might be of some commercial value, as one frequently hears complaints at the present day of a want of fineness in fibres or materials used for scientific purposes.

"I may add that our cockroaches are huge too; but, by a merciful dispensation of Providence, our spiders are in proportion. The particular enemy of the cockroach here is not the big yellow spider above mentioned, but a long-legged, formidable looking brown spider, called the "hunting spider." I cannot find out that this species spins any web, but apparently depends upon its great activity for securing its prey. I know, however, that it can bite pretty sharply, as I once saw one draw blood from the finger of a doctor friend of mine who was capturing it for me. It is often to be seen hugging a large, flattened, circular, cream-coloured bag, which, I take it, contains its eggs. We never kill spiders in Fiji. The natives venerate them as much as the Dutchman does his stork, and perhaps with more reason.


"J. S. UDAL.

"Fiji.


"P.S. Since writing the above I have been told by a friend of mine here that on one occasion he had carefully examined the long line stretched between two points from which the web of the big yellow spider mentioned above was suspended, and found it had a beautiful golden silky appearance, and was so strong that he was able to wind it round a piece of cardboard. If this can be considered part of the web proper, then in all probability a light, silky material could be woven from it, and the Brazilian dress be not quite so extraordinary as at first sight it might appear."

Sadly, as my knowledge of Fijian and Brazilian arachnids is not extensive, I am unable to identify the species involved here - so if anyone reading this could offer any suggestions, Mark and I would be very happy to receive them.

Incidentally, the lines opening this blog are a fragment of verse from an as-yet-unfinished poem of mine entitled 'Spider of the Night' - inspired in turn by the evocative title of a very popular tango (as opposed to a tarantella!), a version of which I have now uploaded onto YouTube, which can be accessed here.