New Zealand Spiders!

Here is a collection of the spiders that I have photographed insofar in New Zealand. If you have any input as to identification I would love to hear your input :) Thank you Shane for finding most of these. Click on the Photos to Enlarge

Name: Pholcus phalangioides
Common Name: Daddy Long Legs
- note that this is not to be confused with the arachnid that you more than likely associate daddy long legs with. The one part body with long legs that you are thinking of is actually a European harvestman Phalangium opilio. the European harvestman does not make any webs either and although is an arachnid is not considered a spider.

Habitat: the Daddy Long Legs is commonly found in tiny unorganized webs in the ceiling corners of houses. In New Zealand, these spiders are commonly found in in the north island and a little less often in the South Island. This spider was found at a Holiday Park in the Mapua, the northern part of of the South Island.

Habits: The Daddy Long Legs captures most prey that happen to get caught in its webs. A straining prey will be wrapped up at a safe distance from the daddy long legs via the shooting of a silky web. Once rendered useless to defend its itself, the prey will be consumed by the daddy long legs.

This is an interesting web/nest that I found while I was hiking near the coastline in Paikakariki. It looked as though the contents of this nest had hatched. The thin sheet was made to protect the eggs. It was very interesting. Possibly not spider related .

Name: Steatoda capensis

Common Name: Black cobweb or false katipo spider

Habitat: The False Katipo Spider is commonly found all over New Zealand and is thought to have originated in Africa. It can be found in long grasses bound by sand and driftwood and and under structure. We found two of these spiders on our hike on the near the shoreline in Paikakariki.

Habit: This is a very smart spider. It mimicks is close relative the Kapito spider and als othe Black Widow spider. It is nearly identical to its relative but does not contain the intense venom of which the kapito carries.

Name: *we don't know
Coloration: This spider was found deep in the bark of decaying log. Its coloration was such that it was very difficult to see without a trained eye.

Behavior: This spider did not want to leave the safety of its wooden habitat. When we finally were able to seperate it from the log, and dropped it onto a piece of white notebook paper, the paper scattered like none other. It moved very fast across the paper before we were able to get a closer photo.

Name: Another Unknown

This spider was found at the Bird Sanctuary. If you have some ideas on the identification of this spider your input would be much appreciated.

Name: Possibly a Wolf Spider.

This spider was found underneath a log during mine and Shane's nightlife tour of Paikakariki. Once again if you have any input please post it :)

I hope you have enjoyed my spider photo gallery so far. I will continue to post more as this trip continues. It will be interested to see what the South Island and the Cook Islands have to offer as far as spiders are concerned. Before you crush the 8 legged fury friend chillin in your room, please come find me so I can get up close with my camera. I will also promptly and remove your unwanted guest after the shoot is over.

Which one do you think is scarier? the Spider or the Centipede? Check out this video!

Coastal diversity at Somes Island

This photo demonstrates a diversity of species in the coastal environment at Somes Island. The species present in this photo are quite impressive because they have adapted to survive in an extreme environment that changes on a daily basis as the tide rises and falls. The change in water levels mean that organisms must be able to deal with rapid changes in pH, temperature, salinity, and water availability. In this photo are five different species that have taken residence under a rock. The light purple circle has a type of sea weed inside it. The rose circle emcompasses a tube worm. The orange circle surrounds a chiton. The green ring encircles a closed anenome. Finally the blue circle highlights a snail. Not seen in this photo are crabs and a blunny fish which were present under the rock but not attached to it.

I will now go into some further detail about most of these species. I will be able to give some general facts about the species but I am not able to identify each one specifically. This is mainly because numerous species of these creatures exist and narrowing each to a specific species is not possible with this picture alone.

·      Red algae is a photosynthetic colony that uses sunlight to create its food source. Different algae species use different wavelengths of sunlight depending on their habitat and the availability of sunlight.  It is one of the foundations of the food chain in a costal ecosystem. The loss of photosynthetic organisms in an ecosystem would result in a loss of virtually all other species.

·      The tubeworm most likely belongs to a family known as Serpulidae. There are 300 species in this family. These creatures produce a calcium carbonate shell for protection, which is seen in the photo. Not seen in the photo is the worm itself. It uses feathery looking extensions to filter small food particles out of the water.

·      The chiton is an eight-segmented creature that moves along rock to feed on coralline algae. Its iron reinforced tongue is perfectly adapted to scrape algae off rocks all day long. Crabs, fish, and anemones prey upon chitons.

·      Sea anemones are cnidarians that feed on fish, shrimp, chitons, and plankton. Basically, anything small enough to be stung and captured by its tentacles will fall victim to sea anemones. This one is closed because the tide had move out. It was trying to conserve water and survive until the water level rose with the next high tide.

·      Snails were abundant all over the rocks in both high and low tide areas. They conserve water by remaining stuck to rocks until water levels rise again. They mostly feed on algae and seaweed. Since there were so many snails, it seemed likely that they serve as another important part of the coastal food chain and are preyed upon by crabs, fish, and shorebirds.

·      Crabs were present under rocks all over the beach. These crabs were relatively small and ranged from the size of a pencil eraser to the size of a thumbnail. There are several species of crab, which have adapted to survive on different food sources. Some are scavengers while others feed on plankton or other shellfish. Each species fills a niche in the ecosystem and their abundant numbers allows them to be a large food source for fish, birds and octopus.