It has been very hot and sunny for a few days now (the lack of rain will continue to next weekend I hear) and I've been in the garden a bit this week. I've also been spying a (not so eensy weensy) spider emerge from the ceiling ouside our back door (we have a covered side passage outside) for the past week or so - but until last night, just regarded it to be a pretty bog standard Amaurobius fenestralis (one of our "hackledmesh weaving spiders") but on closer inspection last night, it became pretty obvious to me that this was the (far more interesting) six-eyed, green-fanged mediterranean tube web spider or Segestria florentina.

Originally found in the mediterranean region only, up until the 1990s, the only records for this large green-fanged spider were at ports such as Bristol and Falmouth - but our increasingly warm winters (did I just write that?!) due to climate change (I think I may have been bitten by this spider last night?!) means this mediterranean spider has moved and is spreading north rapidly.

You'll still probably happen across it in the south of the UK (MAP), but it has been recorded in Sheffield now, I'm reliably told.

It will bite if handled roughly with bare hands (but not unless) and the bite is said to be pretty uncomfortable for a few hours - like a deep injection (which you'll see on your hand well after the spider has gone). I should reiterate here that rather like a wasp sting, the spider will only bite if massively provoked - and unlike wasps, spiders aren't attracted to jam sandwiches at picnics - so these spiders present no threat to anyone - they just LOOK like they do!

How would you recognise one of these spiders?

1 - Are you in the south of England (as I write in summer of 2012)?

2 - Is the black spider large and half concealed in a "silken tube" in a wall?

3 - Does the spider have pretty obvious green shiny chelicerae (fangs)? (see my close up photo below)

Answer YES to ALL of the questions above and you'll know you're looking at Europe's largest segestriid (six-eyed (most spiders have eight)) eye to eye (to eye to eye etc... etc...)