The beautiful Orb Weaver who has set up house by my desk. (Yes, Chez Caine is spider central.) She is a Cross Orb Weaver, Araneus diadematus, just like Anita and Arabella, who went into orbit on Skylab 3 in 1973.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Doesn’t look particularly cross to me. More hopeful she’ll snag the jackpot, a forty-foot high killer rat, but understandably concerned that might damage her new home, whilst trying not to worry about just how she’ll process the catch.
I will admit to arachnophobia. I really am terrified of spiders. At the same time, I find them absolutely fascinating, and I have no doubt that my fear is a product of ignorance -- I used to be afraid of insects until I took an entomology course in uni, and now I can’t stop picking them up (when I find them). Working on spiders.
This is a great shot; and yes, photographing helps, at least to the point where you have to get up close and almost personal with them to get a good, detailed shot. This one’s beautiful.
An inordinate fondness for beetles, eh?
rq:
It really does -- it was photography that got me over my extreme fear of bees and wasps. I still get nervous, but getting the shot is more important. Spiders don’t bother me, I leave them alone and they leave me alone, for the most part. I have to have a chat with one now and then, when she’s determined to use my face as a bridge while I’m trying to sleep.
I find Orb Weavers to be particularly beautiful. I’ve even done an embroidered art piece of one!
Am I the only one who sees a face on the abdomen of the spider. (Hämähäkki in Finnish, this one is ristihämähäkki [cross spider].)
I almost like spiders and I’d have no problem with a few taking a residence here. There are no dangerous spiders I know of living in Finland.
Ice Swimmer
You’re not the only one, it’s an angry little man with giant white eyebrows and muttonchop-type moustache-and-beard combo.
blf
Yes. Something wrong with that? ;)
And one brown spider is walking on the ceiling today here. Good.
Ice Swimmer:
It is good, at least according to old traditions and superstitions, which hold that house spiders bring good luck and fortune.
Spiders that are not reclusive or widowed are considered to be on staff, in our house.
--
Cicely:
It’s the same here. I don’t worry about recluses or widows though, this isn’t the territory for them. I got used to Black Widows in SoCal, they were everywhere. Like most spiders, they aren’t aggressive, and if left alone, won’t bother anyone. Rick has developed an odd fear of brown recluses, even though they are a serious rarity here, so I now find myself in the odd position of having to rescue spiders from him now and then.
Yeah, I’m also quite used to Black Widows for the same-ish reason. Which is not to say careless — when I lived in Black Window country I was reasonably good about checking the sort of habits they like before doing anything, and certainly found a few sodding monster specimens.
My (tiny) contribution to spider lore: I found the first brown recluse seen in the particular county we were living in at the time. On my telescope in the storage closet (Black Window territory, which is why(as I now recall) I was checking). Dad captured it (very cautiously as I recall!) and took it in to the County Public Health(?) Officer (might have been the wildlife service, I don’t clearly recall now), who confirmed a few days later it was the real thing, and the first found in the county.
Blf:
Same here. You did have to be aware of the places they liked to set up housekeeping. We had a fireplace back then, and the woodpile was a fave place.
Wow. That’s cool! I was reading that brown recluses aren’t aggressive, and that a family in, it was Pennsylvania (maybe) had been living with a massive amount of recluses (numbering in the thousands), for five years without a single bite. Nope, it was Kansas.
Was it ever! Along with the darker corners of, well, just about everything (or so it seemed), the garden shed, the koi garden, behind the fig tree, and so on.
Yes, I think that is true, but can neither confirm nor deny.
The sample of one I found was fairly inert, and as far as I can now recall didn’t do much of anything until Dad got it into the jar. Even then it didn’t do much of anything, but Dad slammed the lid on so fast I’m not sure it could have! It was also (relatively speaking) pretty much out in the open.