Let us give thanks for what we have.
---
| I. | Gift wrap |
| II. | Beatrice |
| III. | Personality, in a pinch |
| IV. | Snow spiders |
---
I
I awoke the other day to a little present waiting for me on my bedside table.
See that little speck on the notebook?
Not the memory card, but rather the thing next to it.
Oooo! Gift wrapped in silk and everything.
My benefactor was directly overhead (cackling with glee, I'm sure).
Hello you!
This is Parasteatoda tepidariorum, also known as the common house spider. You may recognize it as one of the spiders responsible for the cobwebs in our homes; in fact, it belongs to a family called the "cobweb weavers." This family, whose scientific name is Theridiidae (don't ask me how to pronounce that!), also contains the dreaded black widow spider. However, most species in the family -- including P. tepidariorum -- are harmless.
After feeding on its prey, the common house spider carefully cuts the corpse from its cobweb and lets it fall to the ground...or to wherever it ends up landing (a bedside table, for instance). Makes a good way to let everyone know you're around, eh? Oh, y' know, just little ol' me, hanging out up here, watching your comings and goings...reading over your shoulder before you turn out the light...hey, you know that fly that was banging around in the lampshade while we were trying to read Wicked the other night? Well, there's a reason you didn't hear it last night. Yeah. Not that you noticed. (*drops fly*) Well now you will! Heh heh heh...
---
II
Speaking of cobweb weavers...and black widows in particular...have you met Beatrice?
Beatrice is my pet black widow spider. About two and a half years ago, she showed up in a box of organic California red grapes at the food co-op where I used to work. I had lifted the box of grapes off the pallet, opened it up, and pulled out a few bags of the grapes to inspect them -- only then to notice, left behind in the box where the bags had been, an eight-legged creature, jet black and shiny...not at all like the spiders I'm used to seeing around here. My heart jumped when I realized what it was. Most people would have killed the spider immediately, and I considered this...but decided to save her instead. Here she is shortly after I brought her home, in July 2015:
As you can see, she's not looking particularly plump...the journey from California via refrigerated truck left her hungry. Fortunately, she accepted a fly I placed in her container for food. I have mostly fed her flies ever since.
People tend to react with surprise and sometimes fear when I tell them about Beatrice. This is understandable; I was afraid of her at first too. I still occasionally dream about her escaping from her terrarium. And if she were a restless, wandering sort, this could indeed be a legitimate concern. But instead of prowling her new, secure, homemade container-dwelling, searching every nook and cranny for an escape route, Beatrice settled right in. When I first opened the tiny door I built into the terrarium in order to introduce prey items, she did not race over and try to squeeze out. She stayed right where she was -- hanging upside down and motionless from her newly spun cobweb.
Female black widows, I would soon discover, are very sedentary. Beatrice has spent nearly every hour of the last two and a half years in that same posture and position -- calm, still, and ready, suspended from her web. Of course she leaps into action when a live fly is buzzing around in her container. But otherwise, she has a serene and meditative energy about her. Honestly, in her long stretches of peaceful silence, she gives the impression of one who is...well...how else to say it? Communing with the divine.
---
Some other fun facts about Beatrice: She drinks water (which I provide by wetting my hand and letting a few drops fall onto the screen top of her terrarium); she won't eat Asian lady beetles (believe me, I've tried!); she has molted twice (I think) since we became acquainted. And yes, she has the infamous red hourglass! In fact, only females have it, and it's on the underside of the abdomen -- not the upperside, which is where I had expected it to be when I saw Beatrice for the first time.
Just beneath the hourglass are her spinnerets, from which she pulls her silk.
Here's to you, Beatrice; may you spin your way through many a coming day in comfort and peace...and continue to inspire admiration and respect as an ambassador for the eight-leggeds.
---
III
Once, in an upstairs hallway of the house I share with two human housemates, I spotted a very small and very charismatic creature perched on the wall. I was delighted to see it -- an animal of this kind had not appeared in my life for quite some time -- and I showed it off to my housemate Steffen. Roughly a year would pass before I would see one again. This time it was on the wall in my bedroom, just the other day.
This is a pseudoscorpion (the first part is pronounced "soo-doh"). It belongs in the arachnid clan with spiders -- notice its eight legs -- and, though it resembles a true scorpion (which is also an arachnid), it's something different. Perhaps the most obvious difference is that it lacks that jointed, stinger-barbed tail. As a result, it's harmless to people. Pseudoscorpions are predators that feed on other arthropods and, as such, they deserve a hearty welcome when they choose to settle in our homes.
The pincers -- borne on leglike appendages called pedipalps -- are useful for capturing prey. I find them fascinating for a couple reasons. First of all, they typically contain poison glands (although again, these animals are too small to harm people). Second, the pincers are highly dexterous. When confined briefly to a glass vial, this pseudoscorpion used its pincers to feel its away around and to search for an escape route.
I imagine these hairs (technically setae) could serve to enhance the sensitivity of the pincers, but I have no evidence in support of that idea.
The pseudoscorpion also took time during its photo shoot to groom its pincers -- a slow and careful ritual. I felt lucky to capture this behavior on camera.
Being small doesn't mean you can't have a big personality.
I played around with the lighting, too.
| And thou art lovely, my friend, and ferocious -- A little terror who fits on a pencil eraser. How many people know of you? I, a bully, with those looming fleshy fingers, nudging you here and there for the photo shoot -- I do not know the fear of you. We are giants, we humans, behemoths of the vast house-realm, oblivious to the inky-black crevasses of wooden trim and wallboard in which you lurk. A merry terror you are to me, your pinchers waving. Prowl the shadows kindly, with a buoyant heart, if that be in your nature; for you also are a being of light. |
---
IV
Have you ever seen a spider in the snow?
Walking through the woods on a mild winter day -- sun shining, temperature right around freezing or just above -- I sometimes come across small spiders making their way optimistically, if sluggishly, across expanses of snow. I've never understood why they're there, but it's a delight to come upon them. For a time, in the winter of 2016, I would even go hunting for snow spiders. (They stand out on snow, but many individuals may also be found on dead stems of herbs or twigs of low shrubs and saplings, where they often rest motionless and bud-like.) Scooped gently from snow, stem, or twig and placed under my homemade portable "bug scope," these hardy little beasts made coy and likable subjects.
I found the patterns on their abdomens to be intricate...
...and downright lovely:
Those spiders were all orbweavers in the genus Eustala. Here's one that belongs to the family Dictynidae, the so-called mesh web weavers:
And, perhaps my favorite, a long-jawed orbweaver, genus Tetragnatha:
I'll close this quite-long post with a couple highlights from one of my all-time favorite arachnid photo shoots. The runway star is a crab spider in the genus Tmarus, which I found hunting cryptically on a twig. These pictures are from spring rather than winter, but no matter.
Toodle-oo!
