What's happened to spiders ?

[gasbanni]

I used to get called regularly to catch them by the women in the house ....a glass over them slide a piece of paper underneath and put them outside ........mainly a winter thing ' the spider that came in from the cold "

I used to see them on a night too in the lounge making a dash across the carpet.....

It dawned on me I haven't done this for ages no spiders ........ is it part of this ...... ( before someone says 'oh I've got loads ... yeah yeah maybe but I haven't and it's odd )

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ng-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0619/

 

[gasbanni]

Ps Notice how you don't get bothered by wasps much anymore when you eat outside in the summer ?

It used to be a pain ! You hardly see them now.

 

[cwhaley]

Must admit, I hardly saw any garden spiders this summer and very few house spiders now it's winter -- usually I'm walking into garden spider webs all the time throughout May-Sept. I've lived where I do all my life and over time you do subconsciously note things like this. We had quite a lot of rain though this 'summer', so maybe it's just a seasonal circumstance. We also didn't get any mosquito bites which seem to be a staple of summer evenings.

There are a lot of very docile flies around at the moment though and I've noticed this here and in a few houses within 20 miles. If there are genuinely fewer spiders knocking about, they you'd naturally assume that's where there are seemingly more flies around.

 

[Deleted member 18243]

I've noticed the lack of spiders, wasps and moths. Many people have noticed how you don't get so many dead flies on the front of your car anymore.

Somebody must be using strong pesticides.

Big pharma is destroying the animal world too.

 

[Munroast]

Yep, we really are making an enormous mess of the only inhabitable planet we know of - I wonder if it will be slow process over few hundred years or could there be some tipping point where world wide chaos will ensue over a few months - either way it is in the post, cause we will never change our ways.

 

[cwhaley]

White elephant in the room has always been 'too many people' for me! I think we are consuming ourselves into extinction. There's no history of a population increase as fast and as a large as the one we have seen in the last 60-70 years.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

White elephant in the room has always been 'too many people' for me! I think we are consuming ourselves into extinction. There's no history of a population increase as fast and as a large as the one we have seen in the last 60-70 years.

One minute UK was 60 million, then suddenly 64. Started hearing it's 68 million. Wonder what the real figure is. Few million higher again I would bet, and yet we're still shipping them in. Which means Bozo's environmental plans are nonsense if we keep shipping in more useless feeders to consume and pollute. Politicians are the problem.

 

[Ihavenojob]

Had this in my garden this year

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

There are a lot of very docile flies around at the moment though and I've noticed this here and in a few houses within 20 miles. If there are genuinely fewer spiders knocking about, they you'd naturally assume that's where there are seemingly more flies around.

We take measures to keep flies out in the summer (fly screens), but what I am noticing these past few years is a lot of very tiny flies of some sort, both winter and summer in the house. We used to have a large regular spider in the living room, so regular we gave it the name Septimus.

 

[Ihavenojob]

a lot of very tiny flies of some sort

Fruit flies? Do you have a food waste bin ?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Fruit flies? Do you have a food waste bin ?

No, only a general waste and a recycle bin. We most often see the flies in the living room, rather than the kitchen anyway - really tiny things, we only tend to be able to spot them when they land on a lit up TV or laptop screen.

General waste bin is inside kitchen cupboard, with an automatic close lid and behind cupboard door. Recycle bin, lives in utility room, with two door between it and kitchen.

 

[bernardgreen]

Where have the spiders gone ?

They are exploring the world on the World Wide Web

 

[JP_]

I seem to have more small spiders in my house - every corner of every ceiling, as well as behind furniture etc seems to have those tiny spiders with their little webs.

Mass extinctions can start with the bottom of the food chain dying out....

We're doomed, the end is nigh!

Happy new year!

 

[crystal ball]

We take measures to keep flies out in the summer (fly screens), but what I am noticing these past few years is a lot of very tiny flies of some sort, both winter and summer in the house. We used to have a large regular spider in the living room, so regular we gave it the name Septimus.

Our big spider was called Montezuma

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I seem to have more small spiders in my house - every corner of every ceiling, as well as behind furniture etc seems to have those tiny spiders with their little webs.

Thinking about this a little more, whilst we seem to not have as many in the house, they do seem to have moved into other cooler places. I have lots in my garage/workshop, absolutely massive ones I actually hear the rustle as they run and hide when I turn the lights on and one at the back of my workbench reared up in a very threatening manner, when I went too near it.

We also get a few of the smaller ones where we hang outdoor clothes, between kitchen door and outdoor back door, which tends to be cooler. Several years ago I put a coat on to go out, there must have been one in the sleeve and it bit my arm. The arm swelled up to double it's size (think Popeye) and I ended up going to an emergency surgery to have it checked out.