Craig Burrows

Visiting Thailand (or any tropical country) with a macro lens is not always a task for the faint of heart. For me it is one of the most exciting parts of photography, because you truly never know what you will discover next. Spiders may not be every photographer’s first choice, however if you are willing and brave enough then you are in for a treat!

Most of these spiders were photographed in June 2011. I had also spent one month travelling Thailand the previous year, however I did not see this variety of spiders back then. If you do travel to Thailand, don’t be afraid you’ll see all of these spiders at once! However, once you know where to look, you’ll see them everywhere (that’s good news and bad news to different people)

Horned Spider

(Gasteracantha arcuata)

I totally missed these horned spiders in 2010. It wasn’t until 2011 when I was visiting waterfalls that I discovered them for the first time. This might sound silly to people who live in tropical conditions and see these often, but living in Scotland and coming across these for the first time, I thought I was discovering a rare species.. until I found the next one a few steps down.. and another.

Ant Mimmic Jumping Spider
(Myrmarachne plataleoides)

I would have passed this by thinking it was an Ant if I hadn’t read about them the night before. The spider waves it’s front two legs above the ground to imitate Ant antenna. The kind of ant it imitates is called a Weaver Ant, these ants have a painful bite and don’t taste good, meaning that other predators tend to avoid them. That’s handy, because the jumping spider isn’t very formidable, it ambushes smaller prey.

Golden Orb Weaver
(Genus Nephila)

The Golden Orb Weaver has been known to catch birds in it’s web. If you go trekking in South Asia you will often find your trail has a Golden Orb Web right across your path, huge in size (think of a web the size of a single bed). These webs are also sometimes at face level, meaning you will walk into them sometimes.

Golden Orb Spider Trapping Prey

I got real close with a macro lens and filmed in HD, if you want to see this spider wrapping up it’s prey properly, click on the video and view in 720P Fullscreen!

Thai Zebra Tarantula
(Haplopelma albostriatum)

This is the Thai Zebra Tarantula. It’s an ‘Old World’ Tarantula, which means it’s not very hairy. ‘New World’ Tarantulas such as in South America have “Urticating Hairs” on their back which they can rub off, if they touch you, it stings like fiber glass cuts. So, for an Old World Tarantula like this, who don’t have any hairs to throw at you, their only other option is to strike and bite, which you can see from the posturing below with raised legs. 

Digging up the “Thai Zebra Tarantula”

Now a word on Tarantula bites. Obviously be careful, but there are no recorded cases of a human ever dying from a Tarantula bite. That’s not to say all spiders are harmless, there are plenty of smaller spiders which could seriously harm you, but with a Tarantula bite I’ve been told it’s not as bad as a wasp sting!

Thai Zebra Tarantula Spiderlings

Pinktoe Tarantula Spiderling
(Avicularia Versicolour)

After so much bio-diversity in Thailand, when I got home in Scotland I was unimpressed with the horrible brown house spiders, I decided to buy an exotic pet. This is a Pinktoe Spiderling, you might wonder why it’s called a pinktoe as it’s clearly bright blue in the photo. The clue is in it’s scientific name “Avicularia versicolour” – versicolour means that it changes colour. When this spider reaches adulthood it will have dark red hairy legs with a blue center.