Tracking down wolf spiders in Icelands's hot springs
By Poppy Riddle, producer for the Ice and Fire episode of Wild Scandinavia
The idea that wolf spiders might be active in winter in Iceland’s hot springs, started off as a hopeful hunch, based on an old scientific paper I had found.
We knew that they were present in Iceland’s hot springs during summer, and according to the paper, they had been found hunting and even waddling around with egg sacs in January at a hot spring in Romania, but no Icelandic scientist was able or willing to guarantee that they didn’t go into a winter dormancy - as these spiders do everywhere else that they live.
I was warned it was likely we wouldn’t see any at all. Everybody in the team took a bit of convincing that this potential story was worth the costly risk. But if we found the spiders it would be the first time that they had ever been filmed like this…
So, we took the plunge and booked our flights.
After a week quarantining, we travelled all day across the strange lunar landscape of the highlands. Getting to the remote lodge in Landmannalaugar was a serious challenge. Only vehicles with extra suspension and oversize tyres known as ‘super-jeeps’ can cope with the deep snow and extreme off-road terrain of the highlands in winter, but even with those enormous tyres we kept getting stuck in hidden ruts beneath deep slushy snow – each time having to pile out and get towed out by the much lighter escort vehicle, without whom we wouldn’t have made it!
We finally arrived at the lodge in darkness. We couldn’t resist immediately getting into the hot springs, and no sooner had we begun swimming in the warm shallows than the local ranger and lodge manager, Dorí, pointed up at the sky at the dancing lights of the aurora. It was a magical start to the shoot, and we took it as a good omen for our spiders.
Even still, the next day as we waded through the warm waters looking for signs of the spiders, I felt my anxiety rising. I had put to the back of my mind the fact we hadn’t spotted any webs across the mossy banks when we had been swimming, but I crossed my fingers and headed upstream, towards the source of the hot springs. Finally, near the stained mineral rocks and thick algae mats where the water was bubbling up, I spotted a small web bejewelled with water droplets.
Once I had seen them, I couldn’t unsee them – they were everywhere, coating every strand of moss in a thick mat all around us.
I lifted up one of the mineral stained rocks and five spiders ran out in different directions towards the clusters of tiny black flies that I had also managed to miss, but I had my eye-in now, and it seemed as if the ground was heaving with spiders and flies. Relief spread over the team, and we began assembling our field-set that would allow us to capture these spiders on macro lenses, only inches above their hot-water home.
These wolf spiders were tiny - happily fitting on a 5p and well camouflaged in the muddy mosses. Working from a set allowed us to keep the camera above the water line and provided us with 360-degree access to the spiders, ensuring we were able to capture all the angles we’d need, as well as get our lenses close enough for the very tightest shots. The spiders needed to behave naturally for the sequence to work, so we also had to make the set feel like home.
It was quite tricky to replicate the conditions of the hot spring, and Tuppence, John and I had spent many hours poring over the set design plans when we were back in the office, with no real guarantee it was all going to work! A car battery powered a pump, sending hot water through an array of hoses and flowing across the set, keeping everything nice and warm for our tiny stars… but working in the steam came with its own challenges including foggy lenses and a wet camera! John didn’t seem to mind; it was probably quite a treat to sit in the warm water whilst the air outside was -7 degrees!
Only five days into filming, the very forces that create Iceland’s hots springs made an appearance and cut short the shoot. As we received news alerts that a volcano in the Southwest was due to erupt and there was a possibility that the airport would have to close. So we packed up and hightailed it out of the highlands, to ensure we made it home.
In 2022 we returned to Iceland to complete filming, finally capturing a hunting sequence, before returning the spiders to their normal lives, blissfully unaware of their impending stardom in the Ice and Fire episode of the series.
