Lament

It has been a poor year for little beasties, the insects and wormies and garden crustaceans, the bees and the butterflies, the showy orange underwing moths; there were no cabbage white larvae eating my nasturtiums, just the deer. Forest trails were devoid of banana slugs. Moving plant pots in the garden exposed one or two sowbugs, rarely more. The annual summer invasion of ants through a crack behind my kitchen window failed to materialize. And the spiders, oh the poor, hungry spiders; they patrolled empty webs, stayed tiny, and guarded few new families.

Whether the cause is climate change, here showing up as dry weather, or the increasing pollution of our air and water, or our ongoing destruction of habitat, I can't tell. All of the above, maybe.

Whatever the cause, I'm missing the spiders. Cellar spiders arrange their webs in the corners of the carport, and, indoors, along the edges of the ceiling and under plant stands. But they're all tiny, almost transparent; some I've seen are only recognizable by a sudden sense of movement. Outside my door, a couple of fat house spiders, Steatoda sp., hung around for a while; one tried to raise a family, but I never found spiderlings. There's an undersized giant house spider that does her rounds in my bedroom, finding a cricket or two, maybe a stray crane fly. I did see a jumping spider in my garden once. Once.

And now it's October. Or Arachtober, as I know it. The time when several hundred spider lovers from around the world post our year's crop of spider photos to the group pool, (go look) one a day, then the last week, two a day, and three for Hallowe'en; some 40 photos each. And this year, I doubt that I'll make the count. There will be a few finds this month; it's the time to look for cross spiders, before the rains wash away their webs. But last week's sorting of photos turned up only 17 spiders.

(It's close to midnight. In desperation, I just went out to the carport with a flashlight and searched every crack. I found two very small cellar spiders and one tiny house spider eating a young sowbug. And a fragment of a spider molt. I'll take the camera out in daylight to see if they're still there.)

Still, with the help of a friend who scouted some out for me, and held a flashlight on a couple in deep shade, I've been able to add a couple of cross spiders, Araneus diadematus, to the Arachtober pool. These:

Female, in characteristic pose, head down.

Trapeze artist

Brownie on the edge of the deck.

About that first photo, I'll discuss some of the anatomy tomorrow.

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Ha sido un año pobre con respeto a los animalitos; los insectos, los gusanitos, los crustáqueos terrestres en nuestros jardines, las abejas, las mariposas, esas mariposas nocturnas con las alas secundarias anaranjadas; ningún larva de las mariposas "blanquita de la col" se comió las hojas de mis capuchinas; eso lo hicieron los venados. En los caminos entre el bosque, no aparecieron las babosas Ariolimax. Al mover las macetas en el jardín, solo salían a la vista una o dos cochinillas, casi nunca más. La invasión anual de hormigas que entran por una rendija tras la ventana de mi cocina no se produjo. Y las arañas, ah, esas pobres arañas hambrientas, cuidaban sus telarañas vacías, dejaban de crecer, no produjeron familias. 

Sea por causa del cambio de clima (aquí expresado por la falta de agua), o de la contaminación del ambiente, o por nuestra persistente destrucción de habitat, no lo sé. Puede ser todo en conjunto.

Sea lo que sea, extraño las arañas. Las arañas fólcidas arreglan sus telarañas en las esquinas y bajo soportes para plantas. Pero todas son miniaturas, y casi transparentes; algunas apenas se reconocen por la idea de movimiento. Afuera de mi puerta, dos arañas caseras Steatoda sp. duraron unos dias; una trató de formar una familia, pero nunca encontré sus arañitas infantiles. Hay una araña "gigante" pero no tan grande, que se ocupa en vigilar mi recámara, encontrando algunos grillos. Vi una araña saltadora en mi jardín una vez este año. Una sola vez.

Y estamos en octubre. O como lo llamamos, Aractober, el mes de las arañas. Es el mes cuando varios cientos de amantes de las arañas de todo el mundo suben fotos al grupo Flickr, #Arachtober, (haz clic), subiendo una foto por dia, dos en la cuarta semana, y tres el Dia de los Muertos, una 40 fotos cada quien. Y este año, creo que no voy a tener suficiente para terminar el mes. Habrá una que otra nueva foto este mes; es la temporada de las arañas Araneus diadematus, mientras no lleguen las lluvias fuertes. Pero al revisar mis fotos la semana pasada, encontré solo 17 fotos para subir al grupo.

(Es medianoche. Se me ocurrió ver si podía encontrar arañas en mi cochera a estas horas. Con una linterna busqué en todos los rincones. Encontré dos arañas fólcidas, muy pequeñas, y una arañita casera también muy chica comiéndose una cochinilla joven. Y un pedazo de una muda. Mañana, cuando hay luz, saco la cámara.)

De todas maneras, con la ayuda de una amiga que fue en búsqueda de arañas y detuvo una linterna para alumbrar unas que tienen sus telarañas en sombra densa, pude subir fotos de dos Araneus diadematus al grupo de Arachtober.

Fotos:

1. Una hembra en su postura característica. Haré comentario sobre ésta mañana.
2. La misma, haciéndose una trapecista.
3. Otra, la misma especie,pero café, mostrando el diseño de su abdomen.

Polka dot spider

I have such great landlords! The husband turned up at my door with a fat spider in a jar for me.

Here she is, in my big spider jar (2 litres), on a Chinese lantern plant pod.

She's a Steatoda, but I don't know what species. I've kept Steatodas in the big jar before, and they did fine, but this one was not happy. In three days, she barely moved except occasionally to try to break through the glass. She wouldn't eat the food I provided: a delicious fly and two sowbugs. Previous Steatodas liked sowbugs. She didn't. Or she was sulking.

I let her out and she ran behind the flowerpots on my window sill. I haven't seen her since. I hope she's doing well.

Interesting pattern on her abdomen: stripes on top, polka dots underneath.

I searched through BugGuide's photos and couldn't find her match. And I noticed that they have identified most of these spiders down to genus level only, so I'll not send her photo in.

Arachtober offering

It's Arachtober! Every October, I join a group of spider lovers on Flickr, each posting one arachnid photo per day until Hallowe'en. It's great fun, and the photos are worth browsing, even if you're not a spider fan. (You may become one after seeing some of our beauties!)

Spiders make traps for the unwary; webs and tunnels and cleverly camouflaged hideouts. And we, all unaware, fill our homes with traps for spiders. Bathtubs and shower stalls, kitchen sinks, washbasins, trash cans; anything with slippery walls, especially if it's baited with a hint of moisture at the bottom. Have you watched a spider caught in a bathtub? It flails away at the lower curve, trying to gain a grip on the cliff face, trying and panicking and trying and failing until some helpful human fishes it out and sets it free outside with a warning; "Don't do that again!"

Every morning, it seems, I lift another harvestman or spider out of the kitchen sink. Usually, they're fine, just frustrated. But recently, I found one drowned in a dish I'd left soaking after a midnight snack. (My bad!) I spooned him out and drained him on a paper towel, where he twitched once, as if to say, "I'm alive," and then lay limp and still. So I dried him with a fresh corner of the towel, and untangled his legs with a fine paintbrush. And went for the camera.

Steatoda grossa, still wet, deciding whether to live or die. But very clean.

10 minutes after the rescue, he's up and running.

All is well. He stops and looks back, as if to memorize the danger zone, then turns and leaves.

I haven't seen him since; he must have learned his lesson.

(I held these photos until I could post them first in the Arachtober pool.)

Good provider

Laurie was always on the lookout for good spiders for me. And even though he's gone now, he left me well provided for. Cleaning out his gardening supplies this afternoon, I found some of them.

A nice little fat steatoda on a plastic bin.

And a good sized tegenaria on a 2x6.

I only had the little pocket camera nearby; I hadn't thought of spiders before I started work. And by the time I'd run to get the big camera, the critters had all gone into hiding. When I do his garden tool chest, next, I'll start work with the good camera within reach.

Another fat-bellied spider

Laurie brought me another spider. He's getting good at catching them.

She looks like another Steatoda*, but the pattern on her back is different than the previous dark brown ones.

I have her in a jar with some moss for tying down her web, and a few woodbugs, since those are some Steatoda's favourite lunch, but she has been ignoring them. I sprayed the jar with water, to keep the woodbugs alive and active, so she's all wet. And not happy about it.

Hanging belly up, in her normal position.

Another one for BugGuide. And I'm getting behind; now I have three critters lined up to be sent in, and I've been too busy to settle down and get them done.

UPDATE: BugGuide identifies it as Pimoa altioculata. She's a night hunter.

*Steatoda grossa, Steatoda bipunctata.

Can we say a spider is courageous?

I'm back! Now, about that spider ...

Laurie brought me a small, fat spider a couple of months ago. As far as I can tell, it is a male false black widow, Steatoda grossa. (I could be wrong; I often am.) I was getting ready to clean out old duff and add a few tasty morsels to his cage the other day, when I noticed that he was hanging oddly in a mess of catkin fluff.

Seen from the belly, against the light.

Usually these spiders sit in an elegant pose, with the legs arched high above the body, "toes" spread wide. Now he (answers* to "Spotty") was hanging belly-up, with each pair of legs meeting at the tip. I thought he might be sick, or unhappy with the catkin fluff, which bothers some spiders, so I touched him with the tip of my tiny paintbrush. He didn't move. I gently pulled the catkins fluff away, leaving him hanging by his own web. He promptly let go and dropped to the bottom. So he was alive and responding. I let him rest. The housecleaning could wait until he was ready.

Half an hour later, I checked back. Spotty was lying upside-down on the bottom of his box, twitching feebly. I looked closer; what was wrong?

Nothing wrong, at all. He's molting. 7:14 PM.

He seemed to be still connected to the old skin, by the tips of his legs; it moved when he twitched. He looked exhausted, pale and wan; his cephalothorax and legs were almost transparent.

I notice, looking and measuring the photos, that his new legs are about 1/3 longer than the old ones.

6 minutes later, 7:20

I watched for the next 35 minutes, as he struggled, weakly - oh, so painfully weakly! - to disengage from the old exoskeleton and to turn himself upright. At times, it looked as if he were about to give up and just let himself die; it was hard to let him suffer and not try to help.

Over half an hour later. 7:57 PM.

He finally righted himself and struggled over to a pile of duff. There he rested for a long time. He didn't have the use of the legs on the left yet; they lay together, stretched out; at least the joints were working on the right.

An hour later, as I watched, he dragged himself upright, and climbed an inch up the duff. Another rest. Next time I looked, he was hidden.

By the next evening, he was up and about, hunting, looking like his old self. But a bit bigger.

The legs are still tranbslucent; by the next day, they'd darkened and developed their old sheen.

BugGuide has a series of photos of another small spider molting; comparing with mine, I realized better what was happening to Spotty, here.

In the first BG photo, the lynx spider is hanging in the same position; upside-down, toes together.

Typical position assumed by most spiders before shedding.

Good! Now I know, for next time.

Here, the legs are half in, half out of the old skin. 

Stretching. This is performed by most spiders as soon as they are free of the old skin.

This is the first time I've seen a spider molt. The whole process, from start to finish, where he could actually walk away, took about 2 hours. It looks extremely stressful, sort of like childbirthing in reverse. And to think they go through this every few months!

Clown-face spider

It's an odd year for spiders. Most of those I've been finding around here are very small, and most are ones I haven't seen before.

BugGuide suggests choosing an identifying name; I called this one "Clown face spider". Once I get an ID from them, I'll update the post.

The "face" is on the back, not the head, but still ...

The spider is about 1 1/2 millimetres long. I think I see eight eyes here. And since the pedipalps (only one visible) have no club ends, she is probably female. Or very young.

Update: BugGuide identifies it as a juvenile False Black Widow, Steatoda grossa. Possibly male, but definitely young.

The bite of this spider can produce symptoms that are similar, but much less severe than those of a black widow bite. In some cases blistering may form at the site of the bite along with physical discomfort that lasts for several days.

I wonder how big it has to be before it can actually bite through human skin. BugGuide has a photo of one that grew to 7 mm. (about 1/4 inch) by 8 months old. A mature female looks like a black widow without the red mark on the belly. I'll keep a lookout for these now.

To spin or not to spin

I will never catch up. Ever.

I've got half a dozen bugs in bottles and boxes on my desk, waiting to be blogged about; my extra hard drive is full of folders labelled, "Blog these"; I've got bookmarks, books, lists of links; the garden is growing, the bees are visiting ...

I need a week, just now and then, with 9 30-hour days in it. Please?

Or I can just get a move on. Starting with a batch of spiders.

1. I flipped a rock today. On the bottom, I found this large web:

Spider web. With average-sized dried maple leaf for comparison.

I didn't want to disturb the spider inside, but I did get a bit of her in one photo; there's a fat, round, brown and black spider body visible just under the centre, and the tip of a couple of legs on the left side.

Funnel-web spider.

2. On the rhododendrons along the walk, the pretty cross spiders are setting up shop. They're still very tiny; barely bright dots where the sun hits them.

Araneus diadematus.

They all, without exception, arrange their round web in front of the vegetation, and sit motionless in the centre, always with their topside facing out, head down.

3. I found this Philodromus dispar in my hallway, captured him, and photographed him in the viewing tin. He (his pedipalp has a thick, blobby end, which identifies him as male) didn't appreciate the attention, but frantically ran around and around, looking to escape, so I quickly let him go, beside the door to the outside, leaving him to make the choice; outside or inside. He chose inside.

I saw him later, roaming in the bathroom. The next day, he was on a lamp in the living room, and later on the wall over my desk. He doesn't make a web. He's a hunter, looking for a mate, probably.

Black and white running crab spider. Always recognizable, because he's lost one of his pedipalps.

4. And this is my Brownie, lurking in her jar:

Steatoda bipunctata

She makes a messy web, with lines going every which way, some sticky, some to be used as paths or signalling threads. She hangs upside-down, after the manner of a house spider, but chooses different spots according to her whim of the moment. Usually, she is under some sort of shelter; a leaf or a clump of frass. Here, she is under the thick stem of a dried leaf.

When a woodbug (her favourite food) falls into the web, she springs into action. But instead of heading directly to the bug, she climbs to the top of a thread, then angles down to reach the bug from overhead. She bites it, then ties it up with silk, using her back legs to manipulate the threads. Once it's tied up, she drags it off, and hides it under another leaf to eat later on.

5. I found this big spider on a garden wall in Tsawwassen:

Large hunter, Tegenaria sp.

Tegenarias are web spiders, but I often see them laying in wait under a bit of shelter, without a web. This one was under the overhang of the top of the wall. A couple of feet away, I found an egg mass, probably hers. You can see the individual eggs under their blanket of webbing. (Photos of egg sacs of other Tegenarias, here and here.)

Spider egg mass.

6. This is a jumping spider that I have never seen before. The usual jumpers I see are those zebra-striped ones. This was a bit bigger, a lot more curious; he kept dancing around, trying to get a good look at the camera.

Phidippus borealis? Tsawwassen.

See those headlight eyes! No fly can sneak by, unobserved! I have seen a jumping spider leap almost 4 inches to catch a fly in mid-air. No web is needed.

Jumper. Side view. Eyes on the top of his head. Handy.

And for a change of scenery, here's a corner of my garden.


I didn't see any spiders on this plant.

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This is why I love blogging!

One of the reasons that I love blogging, at least.

Yesterday, I wrote about my stumbling efforts to identify a spider, and about the help I'd gotten along the way. Within hours, more help arrived, with enough info on spider anatomy to warrant another post.

Rod Crawford had identified my spider as Steatoda bipunctata. I asked about defining marks; how had he identified her, and did the name refer to the dimples on the upper abdomen? Lynette Schimming forwarded my question to him; he wrote,

There aren't any (defining marks). I identified it from the epigynum. But yes, it's probably named after the "dimples" (which actually most spiders have - they're the apodemes or attachment points for the heart muscles).

Time for some definitions:

Epigynum (or epigyne): the female genital opening in spiders. (Wikipedia) Often used to distinguish species (as in this case). Christopher Taylor says (in the comments),

If you look at the front end of the underside of the abdomen, in front of the markings, you can see a dark sclerotised structure.

The epigyne is the black thing up near her waist.

PZ has a nice diagram and an explanation of spider sex, here: Spider Kama Sutra.

Sclerotised: hardened or toughened tissue. (Csiro)

Christopher adds,

it doesn't get sclerotised like that until they reach maturity (though a non-sclerotised epigyne may be visible in the second-to-last instar).

Question for Christopher: how do you know it's hardened from a photo? Does the colour change?

Instar: a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (ecdysis), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or assume a new form. Differences between instars can often be seen in altered body proportions or changes in the number of body segments. (Wikipedia)

Apodeme: Ridge-like ingrowth of the exoskeleton of an arthropod that supports internal organs and provides attachment points for muscles. (WordWeb) In this case, it's the heart muscles.

I found it hard to imagine this, but Visual Dictionary Online has a good diagram:

From Visual Dictionary Online.

You can see the points where the heart* (red) attaches to the exoskeleton.

And here are the dimples, on another, very tiny S. bipunctata, I found this summer. (Maybe it's Brownie, as a baby.)


And thanks, all, for your help!

*Next Valentine's Day, I'm going to make my hearts this shape; long and skinny, with spikes.
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Mistaken identity, twice over.

A couple of weeks ago, dragging out bags of potting soil from a corner of the patio, I surprised a pair of spiders. Fat, dark brown, glossy spiders, unlike the house spiders, cross spiders, and Tegenarias that I usually find. I captured one, and brought it inside.

Brownie, in a plastic food container.

When she (skinny pedipalps identify her as female) climbed the side of the container, I got a look at the underside. She was marked with a sort of hourglass shape.


Oh.

Black widow? Immature, because she isn't shiny black yet?

I know that black widows aren't supposed to live around here, but you never can tell; nor are Shy Cosmet moths, yet I found some. And it is late in the year to find immatures, but the climate is changing; it was mid-November, and my fuschias were still blooming. (Still are now, two weeks later.)

I had to be sure. I kept her lid on tight, and fed her moths and sowbugs. And eventually got around to sending her photo in to BugGuide.

Brownie, with a couple of tied-up moths.

Half an hour later, I had an ID. Steatoda borealis, the Northern cobweb spider. Not dangerous. But they are often mistaken for widows, so I didn't feel quite so foolish. And I could let her go. But now she had a jar full of specially-bred fruit flies; may as well let her finish them off, first.

And then yesterday, there was another note from BugGuide; Rod Crawford, Curator of Arachnology at the Burke Museum in Seattle says she is not S. borealis, but Steatoda bipunctata. Two-spotted cobweb spider? I found no common name for her, but that will do.

Steatoda bipunctata. Mistaken for borealis, mistaken for widow.

Rod Crawford says that she is "a rather recent introduction on the west coast." So I looked at the BugGuide map. Sure enough, they have sightings in Labrador and Ontario; nothing in BC until this one. Googling, I found pages of listings all over northern Europe, including the UK, but very few on this continent, and those all on the east coast. "Go west, young spider!"

S. bipunctata lives in close proximity to humans, often in sheds or basements, less frequently under bark in the forest. It makes a messy, tangled web, and hangs upside down either under the thick of it, or, as I've learned by watching "Brownie", a ways above. It eats mostly crawling insects, sowbugs and the like. It has been mentioned that ones kept in a laboratory and fed on fruit flies don't do too well. (So, either I let her go, or if I want to continue observing her habits, I find her some sowbugs.)

And they are short-sighted, discovering the presence of prey by the vibrations in the web. I saw this for myself: the first moth I introduced to Brownie's container didn't flutter, but simply walked around and around the edge. A couple of times, I saw the spider orient herself in the moth's general direction, but nothing came of it for a full day. I moved the container right beside a bright light, and woke up the sleeping moth; within a minute, Brownie had the moth tied up, and was dragging it off to the "dining room". She never had that problem with fluttery moths, whatever the lighting.

Brownie, in the middle of her messy web, eating a fruit fly.

One other thing; she isn't dangerous. (See Wikipedia: Steatoda) She probably won't bite, and if she does, it shouldn't be a problem. That's good to know.

And how to differentiate Steatoda from the widows? The belly of the widow is dark. It doesn't have the whitish line around the front of the upper abdomen. And the hourglass is always red. (Even when it doesn't look quite like an hourglass.)

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