While I’ve been laid up in pain, I’ve been coming up with spider projects I can do while sitting down. Here’s one: raising Steatoda borealis, which would also open the door to a couple of other projects studying spider sociality and singing and pigment development.
I think I’m on the mend now, though, so I’ll just add this to my pile of other projects.
Time to ignore PZed’s blog for another week until that thing winds up below the edge of my screen when I visit. (Prescrolling up to enter this so as to avoid it.)
Just for you, I put it below the fold. Someday, though, you will learn to appreciate the beauty of arthropods!
Wait, singing?! I am going to assume that’s a typo, but I am enjoying imagining the spider social choir.
I’ve now watched the video, and learned that this spider uses stridulation, like crickets, to make a species specific sound.
It’s not quite a choir of singing spiders, but it is a fascinating detail.
PZ@2: Greatly appreciated (as I check the site with my finger on the scroll wheel, ready)!
When I was a kid, I would exercise extreme caution when looking up anything in my father’s dictionary that came anywhere near ‘T’, lest I inadvertently wind up on the page with the picture of a tarantula on it. And there’s an episode of Get Smart that still creeps me out.
Nomaduk, I thought I was the only one who did that as a kid. At least as an adult I’ll look at pictures of spiders but I’ll have a screaming Mimi hissy fit if I see one too near me or on me . Especially if it’s one of the huge black and yellow ones . As long as it’s not near me I can deal
brightmoon@6: As long as they’re pretty small, I can deal with them and will capture them and put them outside. Above a certain size — a centimetre or so — and the wife is the designated spider-dealer-wither.
Meh, spiders are fine. It’s centipedes and roaches that make me want to scream.
I saw a spider exactly like that when I was cleaning the patio furniture today.
I’m afraid I disturbed a few webs while I was cleaning, but I tried hard to gently move the occupants.