Charlotte's new web
Charlotte happily settled into her
adopted Marlborough home.
Photo: Warwick Blackler, The
Marlborough Express
A Marlborough family has taken backyard surveillance to a whole new level with the arrival of a golden orb-web spider (Nephila edulis) which set up home in their garden.
Visitors to Lorrie Griebel and Murray McLeod's Wairau Valley home are introduced to 'Charlotte' by Alicia (7) and Hayley (5) who also check on her every morning before school. (The spider is named for the central character in the classic children's story by EB White.)
MAF Biosecurity New Zealand's Maurice O'Donnell, an entomologist at the Lincoln Investigation and Diagnostic Centre, says Charlotte is likely to have made her own way to New Zealand as a tiny spider blown in from Queensland on high-altitude winds.
"Many insects are carried across from Australia each year," he says. "Charlotte's considered a bit of a curiosity because she is rather spectacular in appearance and is a pretty rare sight here, but this is a natural phenomenon."
Charlotte was first discovered in April and, at last report, was still very active, making fresh webbing each night. Although golden orb-webs in Australia have been known to eat small birds trapped in their webs, Charlotte appears to be surviving on bees, wasps and the occasional butterfly.
"Mrs Griebel reports that the spider has just moulted, shedding her skin as she became too big for it," says Maurice. "She is probably at her maximum size now."
Despite her size (Charlotte's body is 22 millimetres long with long hairy legs), Maurice says she is not considered a threat to biosecurity because her host family have reported that she is here on her own, without a mate. Because of cold temperatures and lack of food she is unlikely to survive the winter. No female golden orb-webs are known to have survived the winter in New Zealand.
Maurice has praised the family for contacting MAF's exotic disease and pest emergency hotline and says backyard surveillance helps maintain biosecurity.
"It plays a very important part, especially in sporadic, random events such as this. MAF monitors borders and carries out surveillance, but it's great that when people do find things, they call the MAF hotline."
- Exotic pest and disease emergency hotline: 0800 809 966
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Page last updated: 30 April 2008