Re: Spider Man Unlimited Season 1 Download
Keena Wiegert
This writing spider also lives in the lantana by the door. It is a very large lantana, and there is plenty of room for these predators to share numerous pollinators attracted to its brightly colored abundant blooms. I have named this spider Agatha. I occasionally feed her a milkweed bug, if I find one sucking the life out of a ripening swamp milkweed pod. She allows me to sit beside her in the sun while I rattle on about writing (she is a writing spider after all), and life, and death.
I find myself struggling these days to find words that adequately describe the roller coaster ride of emotions pulling at me. But when I start to flail, I step out my front door, take a seat beside the lantana where Agatha and Lana dwell, and practice breathing deeply. Agatha and Lana remind me to live in the moment, not the what-ifs, to live to ensure future lives by being a good mother to all my green children, to appreciate the beauty that surrounds me.
In the unofficial calendar of the Pacific Northwest, somewhere between Juneuary and snowmageddon, spider season sits in wait. Just as the leaves start to turn and the fuzzy scarves come out of storage, our eight legged friends start to pop up everywhere. Hear me out, though: our annual influx of spiders is...not that bad.
Despite their numbers, spider season is due to just two main arachnids. The indoor giant house spider sports a name that isn't doing it any favors, while the European cross orbweaver, who lives outside, at least sounds like a character in The Wheel of Time. Like so many among us, both are non-native species to the region. Though certainly we can appreciate that these transplants don't drive up real estate prices.
Rod Crawford has been Seattle's arachnid guy for more than 50 years. He's worked at the University Of Washington's Burke Museum since 1971, and he can set his calendar by the fervor over so-called spider season. But he's mostly interested in the dozens of native species in the Northwest, which he finds at other times of the year. "To someone like me, it's not really spider season yet. It's phone-calls-about-spiders season," he says.
Bites? Nah. "Most people think if they wake up with anything from a zit to a fungus infection to a flea bite, it was a spider," says Crawford, but spiders aren't bloodsuckers like the aforementioned bedbugs. Even if they did chomp down, it's harmless; while almost all spiders are technically venomous, that doesn't mean they do much to humans. The only Northwest guys with problematic venom are the rare, shy black widows, which don't live in the Puget Sound metropolitan area. (And before you start panicking about the brown recluse you're sure you spotted the other day, Crawford states definitively that "The nearest brown recluse is in Nebraska.")
As for the spiderwebs that seem to pop up on every garden path this time of year? Cool, actually. And since the orbweavers can throw one together in as little as 20 minutes, hating them might be a losing battle. The structures capture dew and decorate our yards, and the flourish of large webs can be an artful sign of the season. Are you really going to shell out $300 for a giant plastic skeleton but scoff at an artisanal, bespoke web made of all-organic materials?
Listen, I know I'm never going to move the needle for the arachnophobic among us. My mother vacuums so many spiders out of her garage this time of year that she's probably profiled in eight-legged circles as a notorious serial killer. But perhaps the best part about spider season is that it doesn't even matter if you do respond with a killer instinct; the fact that giant house spiders and cross orbweavers are invasive species means it's okay to eradicate them. (Crawford calls the latter a "moderate ecological problem" but not as serious as nature's other invaders.)
While female spiders are stay-at-homes, male spiders wander in search of mates, even those species normally confined to webs. Autumn is the season in which many of these nomadic suitors find there way indoors by mistake, freaking out female humans in the process. The male spouse is then recruited to dispatch the male spider. I encourage folks to consider simply ushering the spider into a container and taking it back outdoors where it can resume its romantic pursuits in a more appropriate habitat.
Benefits: Six 30% off single-day online winter lift tickets, 10% off on-mountain services, 7 FREE interconnected days at Valle Nevado and La Parva during their 2024 season, 3 FREE days at partner mountains, and 1 FREE round of golf plus additional discounts at Birdie Ranch and Bison Golf Club. Learn more
Access: Looking to race down the mountain at all Power Pass Bike Parks? Get unlimited uplift access to Spider Mountain, Purgatory, Brian Head, Lee Canyon, and Pajarito through 08/25/2024.
The Weekday Power Pass offers flexibility and grants weekday access to 10 U.S. Power Pass Mountains. Choose from 1 up to 5 days of weekday skiing or riding and select the days that work best with your schedule (Monday through Friday) for the whole season.
If you've been noticing more spiders scuttling around your home, experts say you're not alone. In fact, there are several reasons those eight-legged creepy crawlers always seem to be more prevalent this time of year.
Though spiders are abundant from spring through fall across the United States, experts warn that more may be noticed inside our homes when temperatures start to cool and they seek out warm spaces to take shelter for the winter.
"They are not necessarily more abundant than in the summertime, but individuals are more visible because they are larger," said Anne Danielson-Francois, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. "A small web might go unnoticed in your kitchen window, but once that spider has grown to full size and spins a web that covers a quarter of the window, you could not miss it."
Our homes are rife with window sills and other small crevices in which spiders can hide, while trash cans and compost bins provide a plentiful food source of scavenging insects, said Lisa Gonzalez, a program manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, home to the spider pavilion where about 300 spiders of up to 15 species live.
Late summer and early fall is typically when male webspinners, hoping to put their newly-developed sex organs to the test, leave their webs in search of female mates, Danielson-Francois said. The female spiders, depending on species, typically conserve their energy and remain at their spun homes, waiting on the males to come to them.
In the Chicago region, for instance, this time period starts around mid-September through October, or the first hard frost of the year, said Allen Lawrance, associate curator of entomology at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum located in Chicago and operated by the Chicago Academy of Science.
Arachnologists do acknowledge that many people are fearful of spiders and may not want them around. But there's no need to burn your house down to rid yourself of the critters; if you can't tolerate their presence, simply use a cup and piece of paper to capture and move the spider outside.
More drastic (and nonlethal) measures include inspecting the perimeter of your home to ensure that all cracks are sealed, window screens are tight-fitting and no gaps exist below doors, Lawrance said. Homeowners can also keep porch lights turned off at night to avoid attracting insects that spiders prey on, he added.
It may seem like spiders never go out of season. The fact is, they have become pretty creative with their survival skills throughout the years. While they thrive in the warmer months, some are actually able to adapt to the colder weather in our area, so the sentiment is true.
While they go by many names, especially when one has walked through a web, the creator of those webs is probably an orb weaver spider, from the families Araneidea and Tetragnathidae. They are the most common builders of spiral-shaped webs.
Tetragnathidae are a super common group of orb weavers found in Illinois and Araneidae are the most physically diverse group of orb weavers. The shape of the abdomen of Araneidae orb weavers can vary widely from smooth to spiny or very irregular. But in general, they have a large abdomen that overlaps a bit with the cephalothorax. Found in gardens, fields, and forests, most orb weavers appear in spring, but we may notice them more in the fall as they and their webs get bigger.
Nocturnal orb weavers tend to be brown or gray while the diurnal orb weavers often are brightly colored as a warning to birds that they may not be a tasty treat. Yellow, the color of caution, black and white are common colors for these spiders. Females are commonly observed sitting in the center of their webs. Males may or may not build their own webs as they are generally on the hunt for a mate.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Wendy Ferguson coordinates the Master Gardener and Master Naturalist programs in Henderson, Knox, McDonough and Warren Counties. Wendy earned a BS in Environmental Studies from Eureka College and a MS in Environmental Studies with an emphasis on writing and communication from Green Mountain College. She is interested in facilitating a deeper connection to place for community members through nature journaling and education. She is also an author for the Naturalist Notebook blog.
ABOUT THE BLOG
Naturalist News is a blog by University of Illinois Extension Master Naturalist staff and volunteers who bring you stories highlighting the individuals, places, wildlife and plants that make this state amazing. Join us each week to learn something new, be inspired and become connected to your own community by recognizing the amazing ways we are all intertwined.