CANNIBAL SPIDERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4931, 27 January 1926, Page 3

CANNIBAL SPIDERS.

IMPORTED WITH BANANAS. HOUSED IN LONDON ZOO. A rea‘l’ cannibal island has been set up in the insect house of the London Zoo. Though the inhabitants are merely the big bird-e.a.ting spiders which occasionally reach England from the tropics, hidden amongst bananas, they are, nevertheless, cannibals, “bred and born.” It is owing to their preference for each other ra,tber than for the cockroaches given them as food that each spider had to be confined in a glass jar by itself. Tn the hope that with ample space at their disposal the spiders may Hive ■on more friendly terms? Keeper Brown set bp work to construct a rocky islet, completely surrounded by (water, with growing vegetation and 'piiug little cayes into which the spi 1ers, can 'retire for (seclusion or protection. These long-legged cannibal's have an aversion to getting wet, for, being hairy, they take some time to dry themselves. It is thought that .the surrounding water will keep them from straying into a colony of pa'rasol ants in the same case. But if they do trespass on their neighbours’ territory the dwarfs are likely ,to defeat the giants, owing to their embarrassing smallness and their vast superiority in numbers.