Australian trapdoor spider (Gaius vilosus) Photo from https://ala-images.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/store/f/e/9/7/2f84ce62-fd70-4e2a-a147-94358a6379ef/original

Dear Readers, as I was sitting on the sofa surrounded by a heap of tissues this morning (Dreaded Lurgy Day 3) Facebook delivered up a ‘memory’ from 2016, but it wasn’t the usual photo of Mum or Dad, which always knocks me for six. No, it was this:”World’s Oldest Spider Dies Aged 43′.

And so I was reminded of what was quite possibly the early demise of Number 16, an Australian Trapdoor Spider living in the North Bungulla Reserve in Western Australia. The spider was studied in the wild by arachnologist Barbara York Main; she started to survey the spiders back in 1974 by following some spiderlings as they dispersed and marking each of their burrows with a peg. Australian Trapdoor Spiders are extremely loyal to their burrows, which serve as both traps for hunting and as protection from the elements and from predators (of which more later).

The well-concealed burrow of the Australian Trapdoor Spider (Photo from https://ala-images.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/store/a/b/9/2/ce9cceb7-b102-43ec-92d9-1840e24629ba/original)

Number 16 was monitored at least annually for 40 years, and as she grew older, a tradition grew that her burrow was the first checked by the researchers. Sadly, in November 2016 researcher Leandra Mason went to Number 16’s burrow, only to discover that the silk plug had been pierced, probably by a parasitic spider wasp, and the spider herself was missing. Spider Wasps paralyse spiders, and then lay their eggs into them, so let’s hope that Number 16 was already dead before meeting this terrible fate. The invertebrate world has (what seem to me at least) some truly awful ways to die.

Australian Spider Wasp paralysing a Huntsman Spider (Photo By Bjenks – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6264515)

The research team were very distressed by what they viewed as Number 16’s untimely end. Mason said “She was cut down in her prime […] It took a while to sink in, to be honest”. But long-term studies in the wild such as this yield such useful information, and enable us to understand changes over time, and to assess the impact of climate change and habitat degradation. It also illustrates how animals that live in such harsh environments as the Australian Outback can evolve to live quiet lives, deep underground in their burrows, with limited exposure to the heat of the sun. Who knows how old Number 16 might have lived to if she hadn’t been predated? And who knows how many other fascinating things there are to be discovered about the plants and animals that we share the world with, if we only take the time to really look?

I suppose what I find most touching is how attached the researchers clearly became to this reticent, reclusive creature. Humans have such capacity for empathy and love, given half a chance, though it’s easy to forget that when you read the news. I believe that if we pay attention to the individual behind the rhetoric, whether it’s a scary spider or a scary human, we’re much more likely to understand.