The Great Spider Heist

One of my colleague has a lovely compost bin in their back yard. Or should I say, “had”. They’re leaving our fair campus for a new job in the big city of Madison, which caused me some worry — not just for losing a good contributor in the science & math division, but because, as I’ve reported before, their compost bin has a magnificent colony of Steatoda borealis thriving inside it. Nobody ever asks, “what about the spiders?” when they leave.
So Mary and I…ummm…”appropriated” the compost bin. Don’t worry, I asked permission first, and it has now been relocated to our yard. Just outside our door, where I can check on them regularly.
Is it not beautiful?

It was a disruptive process for many of the spiders. The bottom is open, so hoisting it up meant losing much of the compost inside, but we shoveled up much of it and restocked the bin. No doubt we lost some spiders in the move, but they mainly live in the tangle of webbing inside the lid, not in the compost itself. Lots of egg sacs were still there.

And of course, many agitated spiders scurrying about on the lid.

They live on the small insects that emerge from the decaying compost, and survive the winter on the warmth of the fermenting organic matter, so I threw in some old potatoes I’d been saving for this occasion. We’ll also be much more careful to toss food waste in there, to keep the spiders happy.
We’ll also rename the bin the Atkinson Home for Hungry Spiders, in honor of my colleague.
Although, I don’t understand why he didn’t want to pack up such a gorgeous box full of joy to bring to his new home.

This story has also been posted to Patreon, and I’ll post occasional updates on the status of the happy spider family there.

Spider battles a wasp!

I know a lot of people here dislike spider photos, but this is a video, and it’s a battle between a handsome Steatoda and a much larger wasp. Usually wasps win these kinds of fight, but not in this case, which made me happy.

Also, watch the spider pause once the wasp is lethally envenomated, step towards the camera, and preen for a bit before going back to hog-tie the beast. Bravo!

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The spidering resumes!

We explored the local horticulture garden for spiders and found a few — a lovely young Dolomedes and a rather grumpy looking Philodromus. I try to avoid posting spider photos here, so you’ll have to check out my Patreon or Instagram to see them. Sorry. In recompense, here’s a fly:

I have to ask…so many people are arachnophobic and reflexively avert their eyes at spiders, but do you have the same reaction to close-ups of flies? You know, flies are likely responsible for far more disease and death than spiders, and don’t get me started on their Dipteran cousins, the mosquitoes.

Also, I looked at my Instagram, and it’s just jam-packed with exciting spider photos. Then I looked at the Instagram pages of my more popular, attractive, and charming friends, like David Gorski and Rebecca Watson, and what do I see? Puppies. Lots of puppies.

Am I doing something wrong?

Jumping spiders are peeping toms!

I was first introduced to the wonders of spiders in 1980, when I took a course in sensory physiology from Mike Land, who, if you know his work, is a world-class expert in eyes and vision and optics and comparative physiology. We mainly worked on jumping spiders in that lab because you could just walk outside in the Oregon spring and catch lots of them on the walls of the science buildings.

One of the cool things we learned is that jumping spiders have unusual eye anatomy. Their eyes aren’t spherical, they’re tube-shaped, and they actually function like a Galilean telescope. That’s right, jumping spiders are looking at you through a telescope — they can see things far away relatively clearly. These spiders can look up and see the stars.

We did various experiments on spider vision back then, but one thing we lacked was a spider with a transparent carapace, so we did everything with indirect behavioral and optical methods. This little video would have blown our minds.

We dissected a few spiders and could clearly see the tube-like structure, but that didn’t communicate the dynamic activity of those little telescope eyes at all.

The anatomy is all wrong!

I am offended.

OK, you’ve grafted a vaguely arthropod-like head onto a human body, but you should at least look at a spider before drawing one. The mouthparts are a nonsensical gemisch. And those claws! Come on, lazybones. Try.

I’m not going to get into what breasts do for a spider-girl. Ectopic silk glands?

Sooooon

A reader sent in this video of a grass spider laying eggs and building an egg sac. Spiders can be very maternal, although they seem to lose interest once all the babies emerge, and these are ubiquitous grass spiders. My lawn is finally free of snow thanks to a warm spell last week, and I’ve been checking it out every morning for the first grass spiders to put up their tents and cover the grass with their habitations.

If I have any complaint about grass spiders, it’s that maybe they’re too prolific. Over the course of the summer, they’ll expand their empire from the grassy bits down low to the sides of my house, usually by the avenue of expanding up the sides of the water spouts, and by August they’re displacing my favorites, Parasteatoda. But right now, I hope they’re getting busy and filling the place with mosquito-and-gnat eating predators.

Living the dream

Temperatures have been in the positive degrees centigrade for much of this week, and we’ve started seeing a few spiders outdoors. It’s time for them to start emerging and filling the world with their terrible beauty. Making me king is entirely optional.