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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Getting up close and personal with wild nature in Britain and beyond.

Intimate encounters and extraordinary observations of wild nature in Britain and beyond.

The Living World

Living World: Segestria Florentina

Segestria Florentina

27/10/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Living World, Segestria Florentina

Chris Sperring searches for tube web spiders at Exeter Cathedral.

Chris Sperring looks into the cracks and crevices of Exeter Cathedral's walls to find the large tube web spider.

In the first Living World of the autumn run, Chris Sperring travels to Exeter to find a species hidden within the walls of Exeter's magnificent Cathedral. First found at the Cathedral as far back as 1890, the large tube-web spider or Segestria florentina, is the largest European spider from the Segestriidae family and one of the largest spiders found in the UK. Believed to be native to the Mediterranean region, the species was introduced on ships and first recorded in the UK in the mid-19th Century.

Chris Sperring and Peter Smithers, Professor at the School of Biological Sciences at Plymouth University, go on a quest (with a surprising array of props) to find the species concealed amongst the Cathedral's gothic architecture.

Members of the Segestriidae family have six eyes rather than eight and their front six legs point forward in contrast to many arachnids which have only the front four legs pointing forward. They spin tubular webs in cracks of walls and hunt using a series of trip wires which when triggered causes the spider to spring out of the hole using its back two legs and bite their prey with their large green jaws.

Presented by Chris Sperring
Produced by Jim Farthing.

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