Sheetweb Spider

Mrs H needed a hand in the garden today to shift an astelia from its position by the back door to somewhere else in the garden a bit more suitable.

As I pulled the plant from its position, I got a bit of a fright as this rather large spider was amongst the spear-like leaves. About 6 centimetres across it was one of the biggest spiders I've seen for sometime. 

After doing a bit of a search online to discover what variety of arachnid I've captured, I've found out it's a type of sheetweb spider (cambridgea foliata, also known as the bush spider). They're more common in areas of native bush (hence the name, and thus the find here I guess) and spin a web that can be almost a metre across. I've seen these webs up in the bush here in Blandswood, quite often in the tree fuchsia, but was not quite sure what made them. Now I do!

It's strange for me to be posting pictures of spiders as I'm arachnophobic, but luckily over the last few years (possibly from over-exposure!) my phobia seems to be diminishing; there was a point in time when I couldn't even look at a picture of a spider, but now I rush for my camera and take images of my own. Most strange....