- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 723
The other day, my next door neighbour was attempting to remove the spiders in the hallway between our two flats (my means of some 'spider-removal' tool, which - from what I can gather - is a kind of spade with a flap on it). One of these spiders was a large common garden spider - there's loads of them out this year - which had been settled cozily between the handles of two amenity cupboards for the past few weeks; and when my neighbour tried removing it, she says - now get this - that the spider hissed as it scurried away!
I was told this story second hand unfortunately, but I have no reason to doubt my neighbour. And yet, I've never heard of a spider - be it a garden spider, or any - that hisses. My first assumption is that maybe an incidental noise, like a hiss from the pipes or something, occurred at the same time, giving the impression that it was the spider that was hissing - but then again, I guess if you can get hissing cockroaches, then there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't get hissing spiders, either. I checked out garden spiders on wiki and whatnot, and found no mention that they might hiss when threatened. So I'm left wondering: is there a species of spider in Britain that does hiss, which we have mistaken for a garden spider? In fact, has anyone here either heard, or heard of, a spider that hisses?
I was told this story second hand unfortunately, but I have no reason to doubt my neighbour. And yet, I've never heard of a spider - be it a garden spider, or any - that hisses. My first assumption is that maybe an incidental noise, like a hiss from the pipes or something, occurred at the same time, giving the impression that it was the spider that was hissing - but then again, I guess if you can get hissing cockroaches, then there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't get hissing spiders, either. I checked out garden spiders on wiki and whatnot, and found no mention that they might hiss when threatened. So I'm left wondering: is there a species of spider in Britain that does hiss, which we have mistaken for a garden spider? In fact, has anyone here either heard, or heard of, a spider that hisses?