Megan Wright has a "healthy respect" for the many spiders that live around her home in Far North Queensland, but a recent encounter with her resident golden orb spider stands out.
She said she spotted something strange in "Goldie's" web when she went out to check on something in the garden.
"I thought it was a beetle, like a big Christmas beetle … and then when I got closer, I realised it was a little microbat," Ms Wright said.
"So I was very excited — and horrified."
Ms Wright said her house in Mowbray, north of Cairns, was surrounded by rainforest and was often visited by insects.
"I really like the golden orbs because their webs are usually pretty spectacular, they're really large, and the spiders themselves are quite striking," she said.
"It sounds weird, but just watching them is quite interesting, especially when you see something land in their web, and then they chase after it very quickly to wrap them up."
Ms Wright said her fascination was mixed with a bit of horror on the morning of her bat discovery.
"I woke everyone else up in the house, everyone came up to have a look," she said.
"I tapped on the web gently, and next thing you know, she's back on the bat, and just before I left to go to work, she was eating him … that's when I took some of the photos.
"Those of us who have yards big enough to enjoy and play in, and the spiders are just one part of it, we're happy to share our piece of the world with them."
Spider versus microbat
Tolga Bat Hospital director Jenny Mclean said it was hard to tell which species of microbat had been caught, but there were several in the region.
"Most of your microbats are insect eaters, but you do get specialised ones like these golden-tipped bats that eat spiders," she said.
"You've got fishing bats up here that trawl over freshwater with their big feet picking up fish and insects."
She said while microbats used sonar, which usually detected spider webs, she thought, in this case, the bat was probably not using it.
"They're not always actively looking, while they're flying, they'll use their eyes as well, and accidents happen," she said.
"And once you're caught, it would be very hard to get out because they are quite strong webs from these spiders."
Ms Maclean said there had been several other recorded incidents of bats caught in spider webs but, conversely, some microbats in the Far North were known to eat golden orb spiders out of their webs.
"[Golden-tipped bats] have two large teeth that are specially housed in the bottom jaw," she said.
"They can tell which side of the web the spider's in, they fly in, they grab the body of the spider with the teeth, and then they fly backwards out of the web with it.
"They kind of suck the contents of the abdomen out … they don't particularly eat the legs and things."
