Oh, dear journalists.

[m0lsx]

I have just seen the following pop up in my news feed.

Did you know that the UK is home to a tarantula? The purseweb spider. And now we've officially entered spider season, you might catch a glimpse of one. The purseweb spider is Britain's only tarantula and a member of the family that contains these 'tropical giants'.​

Unfortunately the purseweb spider is not a tarantula. But it is the UK's only Mygalomorph this means their fangs, (chelicerae,) are positioned differently to other groups of arachnids. The technical speel is.. Mygalomorph have primitive orthognath position, with parallel fangs, whereas araneomorph have labidognath position, in which their fangs move side to side, like a pair of scissors. Mygalomorph's include tarantulas & trapdoor spiders.

The UK's Mygalomorph is Atypus affinis & it's small. With a body length of up to 15mm. (Half an inch.)

More details of Atypus affinis can be found on a pdf of a British Archaeological Society leaflet at.. Click Here.

 

[Tarantula Trooper]

I have just seen the following pop up in my news feed.



Unfortunately the purseweb spider is not a tarantula. But it is the UK's only Mygalomorph this means their fangs, (chelicerae,) are positioned differently to other groups of arachnids. The technical speel is.. Mygalomorph have primitive orthognath position, with parallel fangs, whereas araneomorph have labidognath position, in which their fangs move side to side, like a pair of scissors. Mygalomorph's include tarantulas & trapdoor spiders.

The UK's Mygalomorph is Atypus affinis & it's small. With a body length of up to 15mm. (Half an inch.)

More details of Atypus affinis can be found on a pdf of a British Archaeological Society leaflet at.. Click Here.

Giant fangs on tiny spood! Gotta love it! Lol!

 

[Jeef]

You should see the unmitigated garbage about tarantulas I get in my feed! Things like top 10 lists that have a tarantula listed by its common name as one spider then it's by scientific name as a second spider later in the list.

My personal favorite: "What to do if you find a tarantula in your house." I quit looking at them a long time ago, so I can't tell you what they say one should do. Besides, I already know what to do, I put them there!

 

[m0lsx]

I loved.

The purseweb spider is Britain's only tarantula and a member of the family that contains these 'tropical giants'.

So it's both a tarantula AND a member of the family that contains Tarantulas I hear that Henry Ford was both a Ford & related to several other people called Ford.

 

[Lawrence b]

I saw it this mourning and thought scare mongering again . Lack of research or gone for a title that gets everyone looking.

 

[x_raphael_xx]

Heh, reminds me of the local newspaper every summer.
I live on the southwest coast of the UK.
Every...single...summer..."Large Shark spotted in the Sound!"
Always a basking shark. Our waters are not warm enough for anything dangerous. But headlines sell right?

 

[m0lsx]

Heh, reminds me of the local newspaper every summer.
I live on the southwest coast of the UK.
Every...single...summer..."Large Shark spotted in the Sound!"
Always a basking shark. Our waters are not warm enough for anything dangerous. But headlines sell right?

Ummm. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/discover/are-great-white-sharks-warming-to-uk-waters

Great white sharks have been reported in the UK since 1965. Wildlife conservationist Richard Peirce has led investigations during the last 15 years and followed up on nearly 100 claimed sightings of great white sharks around the British Isles – with 12 of these sightings remaining credible. It is likely some reports concerned the same shark, which could reduce the number of possible sightings to seven, from Falmouth in 1965, to Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in 2016.

Devon and Cornwall are two of Britain's largest shark hotspots, with an estimated 10 million small and 100,000 larger sharks across 40 different species said to already be swimming in the seas around the UK.

Up here in Norfolk a few years ago, we had.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7169415.stm

A mutilated grey seal found washed up on a lifeboat slipway in Norfolk may have been attacked by a great white shark, experts have claimed.