Comical moment spider startled by Leeds resident’s Ring security camera as spider season to be worse this year
A video shows the funny moment a spider was startled by a Ring camera’s announcement in a Leeds home.
Footage shows the comical moment a spider scarpered up its web after it was startled by a Leeds resident’s Ring Indoor Camera.
In the video - submitted to Ring by Richard from Leeds - a household spider dangles from its thread, triggering a motion alert on his Ring Indoor Camera. When the camera announces, "Hi! You are currently being recorded", the spider makes a lightning-fast retreat up its web.
This year's spider season (between early September and mid-October) is set to be worse. An expert from The University of Derby warns that the unusually warm weather earlier this year could have flushed more spiders out from their hiding spots.
Dr Goodacre, Professor at the University of Nottingham and leader of its SpiderLab, is not at all worried if this turns out to be the case.
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She reviewed the spider footage exclusively for Ring and said: “These spindly legged cellar spiders are called Pholcus phalangioides. The super cool thing about them is that they dance (yes really). It's a bit like humans on a dance floor - some will pirouette like ballerinas if you tickle their webs or ‘try to look invisible’, and go all shy and retreat.
“There are so many misconceptions about spiders, which is a shame because we could learn a lot from them about what's happening at our doorstep (and beneath our doorbell). For example, house spider silk possesses antibacterial properties! Plus, spiders act as a sort of a 'canary' for your home, indicating a lack of insecticide residues, as these chemicals would quickly kill them.”
“I like seeing spiders in my home. It reassures me that the outdoor spider population is probably doing OK too. This means that they are eating insect pests in farmers fields, reducing the need for insecticides, and that the natural balance of the world outside is doing OK. Globally, spiders eat an estimated 400-800 million tons of insects a year. If they didn’t, we’d be up to our armpits.”
If you have a great clip of an animal captured on your Ring device, you can press the ‘Share’ button on your Ring app and choose ‘Share with Ring’ to submit your footage.