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Story: Spiders and other arachnids

Trapdoor spider

Trapdoor spider

Trapdoor spiders (Canturia species) ambush unsuspecting prey as they walk close to the trapdoor opening. When the spider senses the patter of tiny feet, it rushes out from beneath the trapdoor and pulls the victim into its burrow.

Using this item

Private collection

by Simon Pollard

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How to cite this page

Simon Pollard, Spiders and other arachnids – Mygalomorphs – tarantula relatives, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/12713/trapdoor-spider (accessed 3 June 2026).

Story by Simon Pollard, published 1 March 2009.

Comments

greg ross
03 April 2024
We disturbed one of these while moving a rock on a track in the Paparoa Range, while hunting there in 1969. It was huge, hairy, and looked like a smaller tarantula. We were teens and assumed it had somehow escaped from a banana boat, and then been carried up into the bush, four hours from the nearest road, in a bunch of bananas in some hunter's pack. Many years later I read that what we saw was one of these SI Trap Door spiders. Have never seen another since.