The Spider Club News
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The Spider Club News NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 - Vol.31 #3 THE SPIDER CLUB OF SOUTHERN AFRICA WISHES ITS MEMBERS AND FRIENDS A PEACEFUL FESTIVE SEASON Happy Holidays! (And may spiders light up your lives!) What do YOU want for Christmas? How about a nice SPIDER-PROOF garden shed? The last word in idiocy in the UK, where this lovely invention is being advertised at around £2000. Even the Daily Mail had a tongue-in-cheek dig at this. Arachnophobes rejoice! Spider-proof shed comes with toughened windows, sealed joints and smelly wood to deter critters Sky blue spider-proof shed has toughened glass windows A 'spider-repellent lining' and silicone-sealed joints can keep arachnids out It's designed for people arachnophobes and prices start at £2,000 ($3,075) Wood can be impregnated with smells of peppermint, citrus and insecticide to repel the creepy crawlies for an extra fee Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3235424/Arachnophobes-rejoice-Spider-proof-shed-comes-toughened-windows-sealed-joints-smelly- wood-deter-critters.html#ixzz3ssw9haq2 The Spider Club News November/December 2015 Issue Vol 39/3 Page 2 About the Spider Club The Spider Club of Southern Africa is a non-profit organisation. Our aim is to encourage an interest in arachnids – especially spiders and scorpions - and to promote this interest and the study of these animals by all suitable means. Membership is open to anyone – people interested in joining the club may apply to any committee member for information. Field outings, day visits, arachnid surveys and demonstrations, workshops and exhibits are arranged from time to time. A diary of events and outings is published at the end of this newsletter. Our Mission Statement “The Spider Club provides a fun, responsible, social learning experience, centred on spiders, their relatives and on nature in general.” Contact Us Committee Treasurer Jaco Le Roux 083 258 8969 [email protected] Editor Joan Faiola 082 565 6025 [email protected] Chairman by default Astri Leroy 073 168 7187 [email protected] Membership Paul Cowan 082 773 5724 [email protected] PRO Peet Van der Ark 071 609 5790 [email protected] Secretary Vanora Naude 076 217 8592 [email protected] Webmaster JP Schutte 076 926 1121 [email protected] Spiderlings Shirley Armstrong 083 637 0690 [email protected] WEBSITE: http://www.spiderclub.co.za EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] …. At the Spider Club of Southern Africa page The Spider Club News November/December 2015 Issue Vol 39/3 Page 3 Page The Spider Club News November/December 2015 Issue Vol 39/3 Page 4 From the hub That angry little cloud is to remind the Weather Monster that we need rain We asked the membership if the Spider Club is still relevant: the reply came loud and clear: IT IS! It has educated, entertained and been a forum for discussion for many years and we have striven to bridge the gap between the professional and the non-professional arachnologists by supporting both groups to the best of our ability. We try to educate the public about arachnids and convince as many people as possible that invertebrates in general are vitally important, utterly fascinating and in the case of spiders of no danger to human beings - even babies - nor their dogs, cats, cows, goats or parakeets. Over the last four decades club members have done all these things pretty well. Personally I have been deeply involved in the administration of The Spider Club for 40-odd years but recently wondered if it had come to the end of its useful life or simply needed a new direction. So a questionnaire was sent to members to find out what they want, and on Saturday 7th November we held a General Meeting to brainstorm the way forward. The results from both the questionnaire and the meeting show overwhelmingly that The Spider Club of Southern Africa IS relevant and will continue, with a few tweaks and rearrangements. Here’s how it will affect the individual members: Membership fees for current ordinary members will fall away from July 2016. The membership fee of R120 will be a voluntary payment, the main benefit being that events will be free. There are many members who wish to receive the newsletter but cannot make the events – the newsletter will be a free benefit so long as you register as a member of the club With immediate effect and until further notice we will ask for R50 per adult and R10 per child under 12 for people who are not paid up members to attend events. From July 2016 this will apply to everyone who attends a club-run event, except members who have opted to voluntarily pay R120 for the year, and the event leader. Funds thus accumulated will be used to fund bulk communication (see 2 and 3 below). Spider Club members will be encouraged to arrange field trips in their area and we will do our utmost to cover as much of the country as possible. (We have some cool ideas up our sleeves!) Communication will continue to be by: 1. The Spider Club News 2. bulk e-mail* and 3. bulk s.m.s.* as well as 4. Facebook and our Website. *These bulk communications will cost a bit more but will be easier for Paul and Astri to handle. You may have noticed that this newsletter is rather late. We do apologise but bear in mind all the office bearers are volunteers and all are busy, interesting and lively people wearing several hats. Members of your committee put their hearts and souls into the production of the newsletter, keeping membership lists up to date and organizing what we think are interesting events. Because the spring edition of The Spider Club news got missed out entirely it was decided to combine the September and December issue into this one bumper Spider Club News. We hope you enjoy it. I recently had fun looking at Google Keywords relating to spiders, see what I found on page 21. Most of it was negative, no surprise there but at least people are looking! The Spider Club News November/December 2015 Issue Vol 39/3 Page 5 For those of you who may not have noticed, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the toxicity of the venom of “our” yellow sac spider, Cheiracanthium furculatum. It probably is not the villain it has been made out to be. Have a look on page 16 for background and references to papers supporting different views. More toxicological research in this country is in the pipeline and we will keep everyone informed. On a very cold winter’s day in the 1970’s the Delta Park Enviro Centre was opened. It was and still is housed in a wonderful art-deco building originally erected in 1934 as the sewage works for Johannesburg. The works were closed in 1963 and the building fell into disrepair but in the dynamic Norman Bloom saw its potential and set to work to make the building into an environmental education centre. Go to their website www.deltaenviro.org.za for background. The Spider Club was one of the original exhibitors and our exhibits were initially rather good. We built small dioramas and used dried spiders and scorpions but by now museum beetles have eaten all the exhibits. We plan to print models on 3- D printers because no beetles eat plastic. So if anyone out there has a 3-D printer and the expertise to print spider and scorpion models please contact us. Once the spiders and scorpions are printed, they will have to be painted. Geoff Lockwood and anyone else with an artistic bent may help with that. Then the dioramas will have to be cleaned, repaired and perhaps redone. I think that might be a nice job for the winter. Any other help and suggestions gladly accepted. Happy spidering Astri Photo above: Pinothele burrow – you can see a photo of the spider from the burrow on page 18. (Photo: Astri Leroy – how did she spot this??) The Spider Club News November/December 2015 Issue Vol 39/3 Page 6 Now that the future of the club has been settled, we can get back down to the business of spiders. Next year with the new two-tier membership structure, I will be hoping that the newsletter will reach more people, and that we won’t struggle to find material of interest to publish – there being so many more potential contributors. One can hope anyway. Yes, it has been a struggle to put together this newsletter, because we received even fewer contributions than usual, despite the longer interval between editions. In the several years that I have been involved, it was probably the most difficult editing time I have experienced. That was not the case for the SANSA News, however. They had a really great edition (No. 24), focused mainly on the Feldschrift for Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman. We have written about it here, but commend SANSA News No. 24 to you – it informs about many papers on African arachnids, and is liberally illustrated with wonderful photos of new species. It is available on ARC’s website, but we can forward it on request. One report in the SANSA News is on the number of described species for South Africa. There can be no definitive total, because the total keeps changing! It shows that research on spiders in this country is alive and well. The following graphic from the SANSA News tells the story: On top of this, there are lots of species waiting to be officially described (Including the ones from Klipriviersberg!) I want to hear your views on the newsletter, and any ideas you may have for its improvement, as well as suggestions for future articles.