Rare species on the construction site
It is food for thought that ornithologists today see more sea eagles, peregrine falcons and cranes than we see partridges. But that is how it is. In the farmland, the partridge is today an extremely rare sight, and you really have to make an effort to find the small fowl birds, which were until the 1950s shot in hundreds of thousands each year.
But on larger construction sites - those which we call ruderates – it is often possible to find a few partridges. This is due to a very simple reason: that this is where the hens find food. Partridges and especially their chick live off insects, and insects thrive in areas where the ground has been turned over, and where sprouts from old plant seeds of past farming grow. Ruderates often have fairly sparse vegetation, so it is also easy for the partridges to detect small animals when they chug round. This is also true for spiders, of which a single species is actually named after this habitat.
In Danish, it is called the ruderat house spider because it is primarily found in fabricated habitats, such as on construction sites, stone beddings, on roadsides or in harbour areas. In these sites, it creates - like the well-known indoor house spider - dense funnel-shaped webs in the cavities and crevices, where it is fairly safe from enemies. Its appearance is similar to its indoor conspecifics, but it is a little more sand coloured and has a more heart-shaped pattern on its abdomen. When Lars showed me the animal, I have to admit that I would probably just have thought it was a regular house spider if I had not been told otherwise. This is probably also what most people have done so far as the species has been overlooked in this country.
This story would not be much longer, if it was not for the American name: the Hobo Spider. If you google it, you suddenly end up on 800,000 websites that mention fierce bites, poison, pain and tissue death. Just as with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the Americans fail to show significant proof of their claims. Although agrestis is quite aggressive, is capable of painful biting and although its venom is also more potent than the cross spider’s, there is no scientific evidence for the claim that this animal is particularly poisonous to humans. It is completely crazy; however, we still of course treat the species with respect. As mentioned, the big spiders can bite, and it is actually painful.