"Black-bellied tarantula" | Hogna radiata | 07-2022 | Ticino | Switzerland
In case you’re interested, you can find less cropped photos of this spider here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/other-fauna?pgid=krc12ip9-7d053… and here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/other-fauna?pgid=krc12ip9-c25f2…
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
Let me introduce you to my southern guest Hogna radiata aka the "Schwarzbäuchige Tarantel" – as we call it in the German speaking world – which translates to "black-bellied tarantula". I found this fella and its buddy trapped in my shower one (very early) morning this past July.
You can imagine my surprise when I pulled the shower curtain back and found (approximately) sixteen eyes staring fearfully from the ceramic pan up at the naked giant that was about to either step on them or drown them in hot water.
While I did none of the above, I assure you the "terror" was mutual: although I always claim not to be afraid of spiders (and I love to photograph them), my high-pitched voice screaming "WHAT-THE-FF-…!!??" (which probably woke up the whole village) tells a slightly different story 😂.
I love all animals, spiders included, but there is an age-old fear in me (perhaps an instinct inherited from our ancestors who lived in regions where venomous arachnids were the norm) that apparently can still get activated in certain moments, which is to say you can see this 44-year old man jump like a startled kitten and squeal like a frightened piglet upon an unexpected encounter with a large spider – especially when I’m still half asleep, naked and there’s no daylight 😜.
Once I’d overcome my immediate urge to flee the scene, burn down the house and declare the village uninhabitable for ever after, I went looking for and eventually found a jar large enough to serve my new shower buddies as a temporary residence; I carefully "shooed" them into the jar and took a closer look at them.
At first I mistook them for the species Eratigena atrica aka the giant house spider, but then I noticed the eyes were very different. A search on the internet soon convinced me that my two unexpected guests belonged to the species Hogna radiata, which used to be more at home in the Mediterranean Basin, but apparently due to the ever warmer temperatures in Northern Europe now can also be found in the Ticino in Switzerland.
Hogna radiata is a large wolf spider (that’s the family of the Lycosidae); its chelicerae are big enough to pierce through human skin, but its poison isn’t dangerous to humans and the species is not the least bit aggressive.
It is sometimes referred to as the "false tarantula" because it is related to and closely resembles Lycosa tarantula – the "Apulian tarantula" – which is one of the biggest spiders in Central Europe and also the one responsible for large spiders all over the world now often being called "tarantulas"; Italian immigrants from the region around the city of Taranto originally made the name "popular" in the United States from whence it went on to conquer the rest of the globe.
And I can attest that Hogna radiata is pretty impressive too; including legs the species can reach the size of the palm of your hand, though it is nowhere near as big as the large spiders in the Theraposidae family which are commonly called tarantulas in the English speaking world (in German, French and Italian it’s often the large spiders of the Lycosidae family that are called tarantulas which can be a bit confusing).
I released "my tarantulas" in the garden – but not before a quick photo shoot that saw me place my "models" in a huge salad bowl I had decorated with blossoms of the trumpet vine (I sincerely hope my salad-loving, spider-fearing family & friends never read this 😜 ).
After the initial scare, I now count myself lucky that I happened upon this beautiful species which I hadn’t known before, and I certainly hope to see it again (although preferably not in my shower… or ANYWHERE in the house during the wee hours of the morning 😊 ).
As always, many greetings to all of you and have a lovely weekend ahead, and please let me know what you think in the comments below (which I love to read, even though – as I’m sure you’re all aware by now – it always takes me ages to reply, for which I’m genuinely sorry!!! 🙏 😊 👍❤)
Posted by Lacerta Bilineata on 2022-11-09 15:35:00
Tagged: , Hogna radiata , Schwarzbäuchige Tarantel , Fausse Tarantule , Tarantula , Wolf Spider , macro , gogoschka , lacerta bilineata , Ticino , Tessin , Schweiz , Suisse , Switzerland , Svizzera , spider , ragno , spinne , lacerta , bilineata , araigné , araña , araña licósida , taranta , tarantola , tarántulas , Lycosidae , wolfspinne , sony rx10m4 , animals , animal , monteggio , rx10m4
