Of the 33 spider families represented in Britain, 21 are featured in this chart. The guide includes colour illustrations and a table with identification features, habitat and methods of prey capture for the 40 spiders featured in the chart. With warmer weather, we keep our doors and windows open longer into spider season, and let more of the wandering males in.

When it's a good summer, but not bone dry, it's good for a lot of insects, which is the garden spider's main food. Hine explains, 'In years like this more of them reach their maximum size and there's enough food to support more of them.' Now in a comprehensively revised and updated new edition, Britain’s Spiders is a guide to all 38 British families, focussing on spiders that can be identified in the field. Illustrated with photographs, it is designed to be accessible to a wide audience, including those new to spider identification. One spider that benefits from good summer weather is the European garden spider, Araneus diadematus, also known as the garden orb-weaver or cross spider. People often spot the females sitting in the middle of their large webs in gardens or across doors and windows. Warm weather contributes to more spider sightings, but this doesn't necessarily mean more spiders, says Hine, who spent many years dealing with the Museum’s spider identification requests. For most, the bite from a noble false widow, is nothing more than a short-lived, nuisance, rather like a bee or wasp sting. For a very few people, a bite might develop into something more serious. A study in Ireland of confirmed false widow bites found that some required hospitalisation but this should not be cause for panic. Amongst the scaremongering we should always remember that spider bites are incredibly rare in the UK. The vast majority of us will never get bitten by a spider, and of those few that do, the vast majority will experience only very minor effects.Bee L., Oxford, G. & Smith, H. 2020. Britain’s spiders (2 nd edn). WILDGuides. Princeton: Princeton University Press. A guide to all 38 of the British families, focusing on spiders that can be identified in the field. Illustrated with a remarkable collection of photographs, it is designed to be accessible to a wide audience, including those new to spider identification. This book combines information on features that can be seen with the naked eye or a hand lens with additional evidence from webs, egg-sacs, behaviour, phenology, habitats and distributions. Individual accounts cover 404 species - all of Britain’s ‘macro’ spiders and the larger money spiders, with the limitations to field identification clearly explained. There are over 650 species of spider within the UK, and although many may find spiders unappealing or even frightening, they are fascinating in their own right. While many spiders are present throughout the year, autumn is the best time to see them outdoors. There is no easy way to prevent spiders from entering your house. They are harmless and, indeed, may provide a service by ridding you of unwanted flies and other insects. Reports of false widow spiders continue to rise. The term false widow actually describes several species of spider, but the one that gains the most attention is Steatoda nobilis, the noble false widow spider. The phrase “here there be dragons,” so famously seen on old maps indicating places where there were great and mysterious dangers to be found, was not so very long ago not simply a metaphor. In fact, no less an authority on natural philosophy (what would later become known as natural history) than Linnaeus himself included […]

A large brown or grey spider with a leg span of up to 8cm. It chevron marked body maybe an impressive 16mm (incl head). It makes an untidy web with tubular retreat behind furniture or loose skirting, but also under logs and in hollow trees – its original habitat. Can scuttle up to 50cm per second. Zebra spider ( Salticus scenicus) The zebra spider uses its four pairs of large eyes to locate prey and its jumping ability to pounce and capture it. The scientific name, Salticus scenius, means 'theatrical jumper'/Credit: Getty

Corinnidae - Ant-like sac spiders

These scissor action Bug Tongs are the perfect way for children to collect larger insects and bugs which cannot easily be caught using a pooter. Jones-Walters, L. M. 1989. Keys to the families of British spiders. AIDGAP. Shrewsbury: Field Studies Council. A very useful key when first starting out with spiders. Placing a spider in the correct family from general appearance becomes easier with experience, but is an essential first step in naming the species.