{"id":641749,"date":"2026-10-01T15:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641749\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T15:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:50:11","slug":"this-is-why-spider-season-has-started-early-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641749\/","title":{"rendered":"This is why spider season has started early this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cosy season is well and truly here, with the chillier weather and blustery showers encouraging us to swap the t-shirts and shorts of summer for the comfort of our sofas.<\/p>\n

And we’re not the only ones taking shelter from the elements indoors: the spiders are at it, too.<\/p>\n

Our eight-legged friends have reached their mating season, which leads them to move indoors, taking up residence in nooks, crannies, presses and more around the home.<\/p>\n

“Spider season is fantastic”, claims Collie Ennis, a possibly deeply unpopular opinion but one entirely fitting the Biodiversity Officer and Zoology research associate at Trinity College Dublin.<\/p>\n

\"collie
\nDoireann Garrihy with Collie Ennis<\/p>\n

He joined Doireann Garrihy on RT\u00c9 2fm to share some tips on preparing for spider season.<\/p>\n

“They’re all big and bold and they\u2019re out and about, and it\u2019s quite exciting if you\u2019re a bit of a spider nerd”, he added, speaking like a spider nerd.<\/p>\n

By way of explaining this influx of arachnids, Ennis says that this season comes after they\u2019re spent the summer maturing and waiting to breed. “It\u2019s been a good summer for bugs, with the heat and the humidity”, he adds. “So they\u2019ve kind of gotten big and bold very fast.”<\/p>\n

If you think you\u2019ve been spotting spiders around your gaff earlier than usual, Ennis says that this is true as the mating season has come sooner this year.<\/p>\n

“What happens is the males are the ones who go wandering, looking for the females. Spider society, if you can call it that, is very much female-orientated. The men are just out to pass on their genes and then they become a post-coital meal. As soon as he\u2019s done the deed, the female will just see him as a source of protein.”<\/p>\n

\"Cellar
\nCellar Spider or ‘daddy long legs’<\/p>\n

If this bit of dating advice has not swayed you to be sympathetic to the spiders, Ennis is undeterred, pointing out the three more common kinds of spiders you\u2019ll spot at this time of year.<\/p>\n

Starting with the leggy ones you find in your bath and sink: the Giant European House Spiders, which slip into those polished and smooth surfaces while wandering around looking for females.<\/p>\n

“Even though they\u2019re spiders, they can\u2019t get a grip. They get stuck there. So a great tip at this time of year, if you don\u2019t want to wake up with a spider in your bath or your sink, just leave a towel draped over it, so it\u2019s like a little emergency escape.”<\/p>\n

The spindly “dainty” spiders that hang out in the corners of damp areas, Ennis says, are a species of Cellar Spider, also known as Daddy Long Legs. “Very very harmless, they don\u2019t get onto the ground, they\u2019re usually up high in corners.”<\/p>\n

They also eat clothes moths that enter the house, “so a very good and useful little pal to have around the house”, Ennis says.<\/p>\n

Next, the False Widow Spider is a species we will often hear about in the news.<\/p>\n

\"Noble
\nFalse Widow Spider<\/p>\n

In the 20 years since they were first spotted by a colleague of Ennis’s, arachnologist Miles Nolan, they have spread across the country, he says.<\/p>\n

“Can they give you a nip? They can. Are they out to give you a nip? No”, Ennis explains.<\/p>\n

“What happens is generally they\u2019ll get caught in a jacket, caught in a pair of shoes or something like that, you put it on, and as you squeeze them, they\u2019ll give you a bite.”<\/p>\n

He stresses that there are “no fatalities recorded from them; they\u2019re not like Black Widows or Recluse Spiders”, with the bite feeling “more or less like a bee sting”.<\/p>\n

If you know a False Widow Spider is in your house, Ennis suggests cleaning cobwebs to encourage them to move on. To remove them, he recommends the standard way of using a glass cup and some cardboard to safely trap and lift them out of the house and into the garden.<\/p>\n

\"Placing<\/p>\n

Is there a way to prevent spiders coming in at all? Ennis says you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, we are creatures of this earth, and we have to share it with the other creatures of the earth. You could go full crazy and absolutely nerf your house with chemicals or cling film and fill all the gaps so there\u2019s no way anything can get in or out, but spiders start off life very small, and they do wander, and they\u2019re going to end up in places where maybe they\u2019re not welcome.”<\/p>\n

Crucially, Ennis says, it\u2019s important to remember that we don\u2019t have any species of spiders in Ireland that can give you a lot of harm. “Nothing\u2019s going to kill you, and they\u2019re not out to get you anyway.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cosy season is well and truly here, with the chillier weather and blustery showers encouraging us to swap…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-641749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}