Enormous, gorgeous, horrifying

Trapdoor spiders (in Georgia, eight species in three families) construct silk-lined burrows underground that open to the surface with a trapdoor.

These spiders are slow to reach sexual maturity and are exceptionally long-lived. You may have heard about the Australian trapdoor spider that recently died in her burrow in the wild at 43 years of age. She was the victim of a parasitic wasp (such wasps are the arch nemesis of these spiders).

Impressive trapdoor spiders in the genus Ummidia (up to 2 inches, making them the largest mygalomorph spiders in Georgia) are such a shiny black, they appear as if varnished. When I recently found a mature female at Griffin Ridge WMA near Ludowici, I muttered to myself, “My, she’s enormous, gorgeous, horrifying."

According to Rebecca Godwin, a doctoral candidate at Auburn University studying Ummidia, “Generally speaking, the venoms of trapdoor spiders in the United States are not particularly strong and most people equate trapdoor spider bites to something like a bee sting.” When disturbed, these arachnids insert their fangs into holes in their thick cork-like doors and hold on to the sides of the burrow with all eight legs.

Godwin, who has been studying Ummidia in North, Central, and South America for several years now, told me there are dozens of undescribed species in the U.S. alone (based on specimens she has borrowed from natural history museums along with spiders contributed by the general public).

“I’m always willing to take additional specimens of Ummidia from anyone who would like to send them to me!” she adds. (Note to readers: email me if you are interested in contributing.)

Recent studies of trapdoor spiders that have included genetics techniques to complement morphological analyses have revealed a large number of undescribed species. Professor Jason Bond, an accomplished spider taxonomist based at Auburn University, tends a nest of arachnologically skilled graduate students who assist him with these studies.

Bond has named new trapdoor species for Angelina Jolie (Aptostichus angelinajolieae) and Neil Young (Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi), in honor of their philanthropic contributions, not celebrity. When Stephen Colbert complained on live television that Bond had never named a spider for him, Bond did so. Yes, the final “t” is silent in Aptostichus stephencolberti.

With excitement, I recently mailed to Bond’s Auburn lab specimens of Myrmekiaphila I found at sites in the Coastal Plain of southeastern Georgia, a region for which, interestingly, the genus has never been documented. Could these spiders possibly be new to science?!

How does one locate the cryptic burrows of these eight-leggers? Bring indefatigable perseverance, then gently rake leaf litter along stream edges and roll several thousand logs (sometimes burrows are revealed by either of these methods). Going out at night and shining for the open doors of hunting spiders also works.

Georgia is also home to two species of odd mygalomorphs known as ravine trapdoor spiders (genus Cyclocosmia). Remarkably, my recent surveys have documented the Torreya trapdoor spider (C. torreya) in the Coastal Plain of southeastern Georgia, well outside of its known range.

These compact, tank-like spiders are a favorite of arachnologists, and it’s easy to understand why — their bizarre, manhole cover-like abdomens are abruptly truncated and end in a heavily sclerotized disc. The discs fits tightly against the wall of their burrows and are essentially false trapdoors that keep wasp predators and flooding rains from their homes.

Dirk J. Stevenson is a naturalist, educator and the owner of Altamaha Environmental Consulting in Hinesville. He can be reached at eelmoccasin@yahoo.com.

Digging a burrow is a Zen exercise. I carefully thread the spider’s tunnel with a tiny, straight piece of vegetation and excavate by hand, working slowly. Sometimes I mistake tunnels made by other animals for spider burrows. This week, in a luxuriant, moss-festooned live oak hammock off Possum Point Road at Altamaha WMA, McIntosh County, I exhumed a brassy-eyed spadefoot toad that squeaked when I first touched him, then dug up a beautiful metallic green cuckoo wasp. — Dirk J. Stevenson

How to dig up a spider’s burrow