IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3854, 24 January 1928, Page 5

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

SPIDERS AND THEIR POISONS.

E • By

J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

While collecting a close ally of the katipo in Cuba, Dr J. G. Myers, who •formerly studied spiders in New Zealand, ■ Was impressed by the great quantity of poison exuded by the Cuban spider. Lacirodectes mactans, when it was held in ■forceps. This material coagulated like the albumen of an egg when the spider Was dropped into diluted alcohol. Dr Myers has not noticed the same quantities in other spiders, and he asks if ’ it is possible that the quantity of the secretion, as well as its quality, or rather than its quality, has something to do with the powerful effect of the bite. The venom of all spiders is ' poisonous to the small . Creatures upon which they prey, but Dr Myers suggests that t'he quantity of the venom usually may be insufficient to affect adversely a larger creature. Sir Arthur Shipley, puzzled by conflicting testimony as to the effect of bites by the katipo’s allies, came to almost the same . conclusion. - He found it impossibly to beliete that there was no basis for the poisonous reputation of this group of Somewhat insignificant spiders in many widely-separated parts of the world. He > suggested that th e variable effects of the bites of the katipo group might be explained by variation in the strength of the poison at different seasons. In any case, the injection of the poison is voluntary, and does not necessarily accompany the bite.

The Cuban spider allied to the katipo, by the way, is found in some southern States of America, and in California, where it is known popularly as the black widow. A farm labourer in North Carolina bitten by a black widow in the morning felt intermittent pains and spasms. A cqmatose condition followed, and the victim died in the evening. Another man in the same district was bitten by a black widow on the ankle. He resumed his work, but a spasm caused him to mount his horse and try to ride home. He fell off and became unconscious. In that condition fellow-workers took him home. Large quantities of whisky were given to him without any intoxicating effect. This caused some relief from the spasms, which often recurrred. Paroxysms continued for three weeks, and it was two months before he could resume work. Another ally of the katipo in Southern Europe, known as “ Malmignatte,” makes a double puncture, which is surrounded by red circles. The pain and the swelling extend over the whole of the limb bitten, and often to the body. Ther e are convulsions, followed by great prostration and collapse. In many cases recovery is heralded by profuse perspiration. . Against these authenticated cases of poisoning by the malmignatte, an eminent student of spiders allowed himeelf to b e bitten by one several times and felt no ill-effects.

A Madagascan member of the group is described by a naturalist as the mosc dangerous creature on Madagascar. Natives there cauterise the wound it makes, but the usual treatment is to induce perspiration. So strangely marked is another ally, found only on the Galapagos Island, on the Equator, off the coast of Ecuador, that it has been christened the Union Jack. Its black abdomen has a yellow band on the upper border. Lower down there are three great slashes of scarlet. The katipo—the size of a pea, black with a red, pink, or orange stripe down :ts back—is a native of Australia and New Zealand. It is Australia’s, r.c well as New Zealand’s, most poisonous /spider. For many years its official title was Latrodectes katipo, but now on account of changes in nomenclature, it should be known as Latrodectes Hasseltii.

In Wellington, a small grey spider oit Dr Myers on the nape of his neck. The pain was equal to the pain caused oy the bite of a sandfly. In that province he saw a member of a cosmopolitan species, Theridium epidiarum, a paling fence, attacking a caterpillar t 5 times larger than the spider. Beads of liquid exuded from wounds made in the caterpillar’s body by. the spider’s fangs, and they stained the unpainted paling bright yellow. The spider, evidently, had tried to entangle the caterpillar. The head of the caterpillar Was completely : enveloped iSn a close web of silk, which, was fastened to the wood near the cater ; jpiliar's tail. * The caterpillar, by repeated lashings of its head as far as the ’.web allowed, occasionally hurled the /spider clear, and the; spider seemed to ,’ be at a loss where to‘bite next.

. Perhaps the commimesf orb-weaving fcpider in New Zealand is an Epeira, Araneus pustulosa. Dr Myers describes it’- ?as-- displaying surprising variation "''in' s -size -and colours, ,but ,it. alwaysmay ; be recognised by a black quadrangular area on the abdomen, with corners marked m .-white, and by a group, of five posterior prominences, , like pustules, pimples, or i blisters. A captive female Araneus pus- • tulosa kept by Dr Myers ’ built in one night a nest in the form of a hemispheric dome. . It was made of soft, dark greyish green silk, and was confined by a transparent veil of loose but strong strands of fluffy reddish silk, which fastened the nest-to a support.- Inside, there was ■ ball of pink eggs; The spider shrank .n size after laying, but was as active as previously. The eggs hatched in about 17,. days. Two days , before the hatching" the spider built a second nest On _ t ‘ top of the first one. The second batch of eggs hatched in about 20 days. Nine . days later, the spider built a third nest, joined to the others, and, , like; them, containing pink eggs. . The spider ’ was - enclosed, all the time, without, possible communication with a male. Araneus

pustulosa does not conceal itself during the day, but its angular body and its colours make discovery of it very difficult. Its range of markings is in keeping with its varied environment. Members of the species almost white are connected by countless gradations with members of a jet black hue. The extremes may oe combined in a single individual ; this was so in an individual taken on a common black and white lichen.

A female of the crescent Epeira, marked with a crescent on the abdomen, built a nest in her prison—a jar in Dr Myers’s observation station—in a single night. The ball of salmon-pink eggs was covered with a .soft, thick layer of downy silk, partly white and partly orange. After laying, the female decreased in size, and was so lethargic, taking no food, that Dr Myers thought that her work was done and that she would die. At the end of three days’ abstinence she took food daily, and she seemed to revive; but on the morning of the day on which the eggs were hatched she was found dead. T’he young spiders showed little signs of life until disturbed rn 0 llving then pulsated strangely. -They left the nest 16 days after hatching. In the early morning they had swarmed out of the perforated lid of their jar and were scattered over a film-like web, fastened at several points to a wall above the next. This web was 3ft high. It extended irregularly sideways for about 4ft. The tiny spiders immediately dropped when they were touched, but each, in its descent, left a thread, and it rapidly climbed up this to its former position Seven days after the first spider had left the nest there was not a single spider in Slg j 11 All their move pents were at night, and all were towards the open doorway.

A ' vee^s a S° P- Searle saw a pair of blue herons near the Ponsonby waterfront. Landing on Watchman Island he saw them wading on the beach. On the top of the island, where there had been a slight slip, he found a nest with one egg, about an inch and a-half long and an meh wide, and pale blue, with no markings on the surface. He describes the nest as a crude structure, composed of small pohutukawa twigs and a few pieces of dry grass.

Readers of Maurice Maeterlinck’s “ Life of the White Ant ” find it hard to resist the enchantment that takes them from cover to cover without a pause, but it leaves them with a feeling almost of terror. In his efforts to fathom and explain the mysterious actions of this amazing insect, his fancy plays around it, until there comes before the imagination a monster encountered in the most distressing nightmares, .there is boundless admiration for the industrious, self-sacrificing workers, for the warriors, for the complex organisation of the sinister republic where the individual counts as nothing, and everything gives way to the commonweal, for the complete abnegation, the ceaseless sacrifice to the safety of the State, the incredible renouncement of every personal advantage. All this is exalting; but the harshness, the severity, the inexorableness of the social life of the white ant inspires repugnance and disgust.

The worst of it is that Maeterlinck makes the white ant almost human, perhaps, jn some respect above humans He descrioes it as, of all living creatures known to us, the only one that has succeeded in emerging from a wretchedness as squalid as our own to a civilisation. which, from some points of view, is no whit inferior to the civilisation we ar e attaining to-dav. White ants preceded human beings' in the world by several millions of years. Maeterlinck asks if they may not have been subjected to climatic and other physical ordeals that may await us, and if we are assured of their wonderful triumph. He was justified in using the popular name of the white ant for a popular work. It is riot an ant, is not even related. to the ant, and resembles it in only in its stupendous industry and its high social organisation. The white ant is a termite. The three species of these grovelling, odious, and admirable insects possessed by New Zealand may not be as interesting as the species of Maeterlinck’s studies,- but their world offers something more than an attractive field for investigation. . They are notorious at present for the damage they do to buildings and bridges in which they make their -terminaries. . A copy of Maeterlinck s wonderful book, more thrilling than his history of the bee? has been sent by the publishers, Messrs. George Allen nnd Unwin, London,-,- Price, 6s.

Shining cuckoos are very* plentiful on Stewart Island this season,, Mr J. W. Marshall reports. In soriieLspasons longtailed cuckoos may. be seen.in all parts of the island, but tHere'are Tew of them this season.---'ln the- interior Mr Marshall saw a bush canary, a very old friend of his, which, he finds, is rare on Stewart Island.

Messrs G. F. Stuart arid J. Gordon recently reported that there were 41 young in a shark sft long caught by them. They asked if anybody had caught a shark with a larger number of young in it. Mr F. J. Rambaud, Birkenhead, Auckland, states that at the Great Barrier Island in 1890 he caught a shark five or six feet long with 48 young from four to five inches long.