Information provided by the Xerces Society newsletter
How many times recently have you walked into your garden and felt a strand of silk across your face? Or spotted a spider running across the family room floor as you watch the TV news? The end of summer is a time when spiders seem more abundant in many parts of North America, and can be a great time to observe these magnificent creatures spinning webs, catching prey, or even mating!
One reason for spiders appearing more obvious now is that they’ve been growing all summer, and the spiders that are around are just bigger and easier to spot. The spiders we see in webs are typically females, feeding to strengthen themselves for egg laying.
Different species of spiders spin distinctly shaped webs, and you can tell by the design what type of spider lives in the web. Orb-weavers, such as the commonly encountered cross spider and the black and yellow garden spider, create a classic spiral like in Charlotte’s Web (though without the writing). House spiders construct a sheet like web leading to a corner hideaway and many cobweb weavers make a tangle of threads over vegetation.
Not all spiders live in webs. Crab spiders are sit-and-wait predators, hiding in flowers for a bee, fly, or butterfly to alight. Many other spiders are free-roaming hunters, using their excellent eyesight to find and track prey. Wolf spiders have long legs for a speedy chase. Jumping spiders have short, powerful legs that can launch them great distances to capture other insects These spiders do not weave a web to trap insects, although they may use silk for other things. Wolf spiders, for instance, carry their eggs in a silk case and jumping spiders spin a safety line as they leap, in case the gap is too large and they fall.
This is also the time of year when male spiders go in search of a mate. These are often the ones that cross your carpet. Males look like they have a pair of boxing gloves in front of their face. These are the spider’s sensory palps, which in males have bulbous ends; on females, the palps are the same thickness from base to tip. Sadly, there is a great level of ignorance about spiders and they are generally reviled despite being highly beneficial creatures. A typical house and garden may support seventy or eighty species of spiders, who eat insects including garden pests. For information about the wonder of spiders, read the article “Tiny Predators in Your Backyard,” by Greta Binford, from the spring 2008 issue of Wings.We hope you enjoy watching the spiders around your home!Visit these links to learn more about spiders:
Video of a peacock jumping spider courtship - A spectacular video found on YouTube.
