Get up close with New Zealand’s most common predators

Get up close with New Zealand’s most common predators

Get up close with New Zealand’s most common predators in a new exhibition at Canterbury Museum opening on Saturday, 18 April 2015.

Spiders Pūngāwerewere Up Close! features 40 of New Zealand’s more commonly-found spiders illustrated in large high quality images. Spider’s bodies, habitats and eating habits are explored in the exhibition that also features a live redback spider, one of only two spiders in New Zealand whose bite is very nasty for humans (the other is the katipō). For a hands-on experience, visitors will be able to look at spider specimens under a microscope with the images projected onto a high definition television.

New Zealand has an estimated 2,000 species of spiders with 93 per cent of them found nowhere else in the world. At least 700 of these species are yet to be named.

Canterbury Museum Natural History Curator, Cor Vink, says that while all spiders are predators - they have to kill to survive - fear of spiders, or arachnophobia, is largely unfounded as spiders tend to shy away from human contact and, with a few exceptions, their bites are unlikely to cause anything other than pain.

The exhibition at Canterbury Museum coincides with the publication of a new book, A Photographic Guide to Spiders of New Zealand by Cor Vink and Hamilton-based wildlife and macro photographer, Bryce McQuillan, published by New Holland Publishers (NZ) Ltd.

Museum Director, Anthony Wright, says “We’re really pleased to stage this exhibition, which profiles the research of our Natural History Curator, Cor Vink, who is one of New Zealand’s leading authorities on spiders. On top of that we have Bryce McQuillan’s fantastic photography exposing the very fine detail of spider anatomy and habitat, which is impossible to see with the naked eye. Even if they aren’t a great fan of spiders we think visitors will find the exhibition fascinating.”

ENDS

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