Unlike ants, I cannot identify an exact moment of interest. I was scared of spiders when I was young, and it was partially to overcome this fear that I began to seek information about them. Web spiders, especially orb spiders (aranea diademata) were relatively innocuous as they stayed in one place, but the hunting house spiders (Tegenaria sp.) were fearsome beasts, and many appeared to have enormous fangs (I now know these are the pedipalps of the male spider, and completely harmless). An early bite from a dysdera crocata (a spider with a bright orange body) didn't help the phobia, even though the effect was much less dramatic than a gnat bite.

In adulthood a general interest in nature, accompanied by a six year stint as a BTCV volunteer, made me realise that spiders had a beauty of their own. It also made me realise that there was an incredible number of species even in one small hedgerow. Nowadays, a half-hour spider hunt which turns up less than six species is seen, by me, as a dismal failure.

One defining moment in my spider hunting was the day Mark took me into his garden in Australia, lifted a piece of eucalypt bark and revealed an enormous huntsman spider (a species of isopoda). The photo I took shows the fangs and eggsac (carried under the body), but the poor thing scooted off up the tree before I could get a good picture of the markings. Well, I could have been a kukaburra. Mark also showed me a lot of the giant ants of Australia, as well as many more spiders. I have made several trips to Oz over the past few years, and Mark has never failed to find new species for me to photograph.

It's a lot harder to identify Oz spiders than British ones, partly because some of them haven't been named yet. I doubt that I have managed to photograph any species new to science, but I have definitely got some pictures that aren't described in any of my spider books!