Your spider fix: the tunnels

Sights like this one are very common in among the rocks over here but you will also find them in piles of rubble and old shoes left lying round will quickly be colonised inside. I have also observed them living in holes in the corners of window sills. If you drop a fly in these tunnels, a large spider will very quickly emerge to grab the fly and head back inside.

Without further ado: time to unpack a pile of stones and expose the lurker.

deeper below the stones, silk-lined tunnel

Under the stone, mama is guarding her pink egg-sac.

Vidole capensis or Hackled-mesh Web Weavers are Phyxelidid spiders and this species are considered rare although my garden is full of them. They are biggish spiders, easily the size of a wolf spider but very shy and unaggressive. You see that mama spider has pulled in her legs and keeping very still in the hope that I will go away. I gently replaced the stone and apologised to her for destroying her home.

A younger, smaller spider that was running around in the area. When it gets bigger, it will develop the typical line of markings on the abdomen that the bigger spider has.