Tenegaira domestic needed for Scientific study

[Mark Harrison]

Does anyone know where Tenegaria domestica can be brought from? i realise they are pretty abundant in our houses,gardens etc. They are for a friend of mine who is studying spiders silk at university and he is concerned about correct identification etc. I have looked on the usual sources (eg The spidershop,Virginia cheeseman,Martin goss etc) but to no avail. If anyone knows of an entomological supply store please drop me a line. ThanksT

[matthew spooner]

hi mark, i will be stunned, shocked and surprised if you find anyone selling tegenaria. i dont know about anyone else but i wouldnt pay for anything i have running all over my house.
if you catch one indoors and are worried about correct identification then all i can suggets is comparing them to pictures.
the 2 main types of tegenaria you will find in the uk are the tegenaria domestica and the tegenaria gigantea, it is not often you will find the t.gigantea in the house as these are the big ones you find in your shed or garage so if you catch one indoors there is a very good chance you have caught domestica, hope this helps

[Phil Rea]

Tegenaria giantea is a junior synonym of Tegenaria duellica, and the most common Tegenaria species which occur in the UK would be Tegenaria saeva and Tegenaria duellica. Your situation is further complicated by the fact that huge hybridisation takes place where these two species overlap

T. duellica is found mainly to the west, and T. saeva to the east.

You just can't reliably tell one from another without examining the palp on the mature male and the epigyne on the mature female and comparing them to illustrations in something like Roberts, 1995.

I would suggest that your friend's best bet is to try and contact the British Arachnological Society and see if they can help him. He is not going to get accurate identification by eye, and he really needs to enlist the services of a specialist to help him with definite ID.

[matthew spooner]

i will consider myself told lol

[Phil Rea]

i will consider myself told lol

To be fair, I do agree with you about no one selling them though lol

[Mark Harrison]

thanks for the replies guys, i have relayed the information to the person interested. Feel like a bit of prize melon asking about that particular spider after i told them you have got a cat in hells chance....ah well

[stuart longhorn]

Just to add that i am confused why your friend might want to buy these when it is easy to collect Tegenaria in the UK. As your friend is doing a university project, then indeed it is correct that he should consult the experts, for example through the BAS, i.e. those at York University (Dr Geoff Oxford and collaborators). In my limited understanding from reading their papers (see below), there is indeed a natural hybrid zone in the UK between T.saeva and T.duellica (/gigantea). If you get specimens from areas away from the contact zones, that would make identification easier (but there can be human introductions or other relatively close species in those areas). For example, if you get Tegenaria in kent should yeild T.saeva not T.duellica/gigantea, but as Phil rightly said, its still important to closely examine the specimens to make an identification.

Croucher PJ, Jones RM, Searle JB, and Oxford GS. 2007 Contrasting patterns of hybridization in large house spiders (Tegenaria atrica group, Agelenidae). Evolution. 61(7):1622-40. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17598745
Croucher PJ, Oxford GS, and Searle JB, 2004. Mitochondrial differntiation, introgression and phylogeny of species of the Tegenaria atrica group (Araneae: Agelenidae). Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 81:79-89.

[Larry Shone]

The first spider I kept before geting a T was a Tegenaria. I presumed it was T.domestica but then I took a macro photo of the palps on a shed exuvia and confirmed its ID as T.duellica-the only way you can be sure really. As for buiyng them,well theres loads of em in my shed plus a huge egg sack at the bottom of the garden!