The Nelson Cave wanderer is New Zealand ’s biggest spider and is named for a cave in which it hangs its eggs in sacs that dangle from the ceiling , each one check around 50 spiderlings . However , allot to theDepartment of Conservation , only one such baby formal has been determine in Nelson Cave since 2018 , and rangers are concern it could be the result of too many humans visiting their home .
The “ Crazy Paving Cave , ” as Nelson Cave is also known , is a tourist attraction as it has a funny flooring design that is the result of clay deposits drying out over a long period of clock time . The resulting result is , indeed , some pretty unhinged pavement , above which hang the egg ofSpelungula cavernicola .
The Nelson Cave spider is fall in in the darkness by beetles andw?t ? – massive , flightless crickets which are some of the planet ’s heaviest insect and also happen to beS. cavernicola ’s best-loved nutrient . You might think a predatory spider capable of require down the henchest invertebrate in the insect world is doing just o.k. , but the species ’ recent reproductive failures paint a very unlike picture .
“ The number of spiders watch have actually increase from about 2019 onwards , possibly due to a drop-off in visitor turn tie in with COVID , ” said Department of Conservation senior biodiversity forest fire fighter Scott Freeman in astatement .
“ However , only one egg sack has been seen since 2018 . ”
The Crazy Paving Cave ’s jumbo spiders are the only specie within theSpelungula genus – which is too fun to say to be let to slip into extinction – so New Zealand is taking footprint to protect the body politic ’s heavy arachnid .
“ Breeding is the real long - condition driver of the universe so we want to close down the cave to see if this will allow breeding to better , ” Freeman explicate . “ Closing the cave means we can monitor the wanderer universe ’s response to the remotion of human visitors . ”
Beyond being enormous arachnids , Nelson Cave spiders are believe to stage a missing tie-in that colligate Gondwana ’s rude spider – from whichS. cavernicolaemerged around350 million years ago – to today ’s modern spiders . This impressive claim has seen them become the only wanderer specie protected by New Zealand’s1953 Wildlife Act , and since they ’ve been here a lot longer than us , it figure they should get to lay title to at least one cave .
If you , too , appreciate spider in all their leggy , eggy wonder , sometimes the serious agency to assist them is to provide them well alone . As such , S. cavernicolais domesticise the Crazy Paving Cave for the next 12 months , and we wish it all the good with its baby - ball boom windfall .
[ H / T : RNZ ]
