Eight-legged Tasmanian creatures in spotlight

SOME Tasmanian spiders can jump, while others grow to have a leg span of 18 centimetres.

For most of his life, retired teacher John C Douglas has been fascinated with spiders of all kinds, to the extent he’s now documented in print 260 different arachnids found across the state.

“I’ve always been interested in all types of creatures going back to my childhood,” Mr Douglas said.

“We lived in the desert and I spent a lot of time looking for various creatures that lived around me and identifying them.

“When I eventually retired, people began saying to me: ‘Why don’t you write a spider book?’”

He did just that in 2014, publishing a guide to Tasmanian spiders which contained a collection of 140 species.

But in his latest book, Spiders of Tasmania, the part-time worker at Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery has included more than 100 extra kinds.

“That figure will never be definitive,” Mr Douglas said.

“We’re always discovering new spiders and there are simply so many we couldn’t include every single Tasmanian species out there.”

The book, being launched this weekend, includes the three types of funnel-web spiders found in Tasmania, as well as Mr Douglas’ favourite kind.

“That would be the jumping spiders — they have a lot of character and are really interesting to photograph,” he said.

“They are usually very small. The largest we have in our collection is about 13mm long, but generally they’re no more than 4-5mm in size.”

Copies of the 172-page book will be available from the QVMAG shop after Saturday’s launch at 10.30am.