Europe’s largest spider has been found in England after travelled over from Spain in a shipment of olives. The Spanish funnel-web spider, revealed to be a female by its new owner, was spotted in a nursery yard in West Sussex by a forklift driver. The anonymous nursery owner said: “My son, who was driving the forklift, saw it when he drove past. He just saw it out of the corner of his eye walking slowly across the yard.
“He rang me and said there’s something big just walked across the yard and under a pot. It came in on a batch of olives we bought from a place near Cordoba. I had two truckloads of them and after we unloaded, it was walking across the yard slowly.” The British Arachnological Society described the Spanish funnel-web spider as Europe’s largest.
It added: “It has also gained a reputation for being aggressive when disturbed and capable of administering a painful bite.”
Also known as the “Macrothele calpeiana”, they can grow up to around 80mm (3.1 inches) in size, with females typically being larger than males.
The nursery owner said he was no stranger to seeing spiders and other animals, but the size of the funnel-web did take him by surprise.
He said: “Honestly, we’re a nursery so we see bugs and spiders all the time. That [the size] was the only thing. It was impressive. I think it’s the largest spider in Europe.”
The spider has since been taken in by enthusiast Jack Casson from Hartlepool, whose girlfriend named her Bessie. He explained that while Spanish funnel-web spiders are venomous, they cannot kill humans.
He said: “This species builds elaborate webs, with the entrance to their burrow being funnel-shaped and adorned with silken trip wires. Taxonomically, they are in the infraorder mygalomorphae which includes the trapdoor spiders and tarantulas.
“We only have one native mygalomorphae in the UK and they are much, much smaller and look quite different. So I knew straight away that the spider was a non-native stowaway. She has a huge appetite, having eaten five crickets since I took her in.”
