Nicola Toki Doc’s Threatened Species Ambassador is here to tell us about this week’s critter – the black tunnelweb spider which was Peter Jackson’s inspiration for Shelob the spider in Lord of the Rings! While it looks terrifying in itself, one threat to this species is a spider-hunting wasp that paralyses the tunnelweb and drags it away to its lair, lays an egg on it which emerges and feeds on the paralysed but still alive spider.