.....should open this post. Oops, too late? Sorry.
This big beauty of a garden spider just about ready to pop with eggs is right outside my front door. I don't use that door much, but when I do I have to duck under one of her guy-wires. She only one of hundreds. Thousands, more likely. The little twisted beech (tormented beech? contorted beech? Curly beech?) off the front porch has at least a few dozen spiders embedded in it, all just as fat and sassy as this one.
Spiders in space! It looks like some lesser spider has tried to invade momma's web. They are fighting.
I couldn't resist this beautiful web. My favorite spider-time is in the spring, when all these babies will hatch and go floating off into the breeze in tiny clouds.
4 comments:
What great pictures.
I've always found spiders fairly fascinating too. Up here we have an increasing number of the type which make funnel shaped webs down on the ground. The love our high pasture and overly mature hay fields.
Funnel spiders are a whole class of spiders, so don't be alarmed, but among them is the brown recluse spider, which is a fairly massive spider (the kind that would make you say "holy crap!" if you came on it unawares) whose bite often turn necrotic and requires aggressive treatment. Recluses cannot climb well and so usually build their funnel-webs in the basement or on the ground floor. They run very fast across flat ground and are most often seen in high summer. I wouldn't worry about them outside, of course, but I'd try to eradicate them inside my house.
We don't get recluses this far north, thankfully. Although if climate change goes too far I guess that could change. Thanks for the warning tho!
GHACSKH!
Better warnings next time please. I had to kill a big wolf spider in my yard today. Makes me want to peel the flesh off of my face. I would gladly destroy the entire world ecosystem to kill all the spiders.
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