Thread about spiders (not for the arachnophobic!)

[weltweit]

My bed room has a surfet of spiders webs, in fact my son was just telling me that if I don't clear them away he won't come stay with me any more. Spoilsport.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

This looks a great a place to visit - MoD land in Surrey. We should do an urban trip there, and I'm sure moochedit would love to tag along too.

The bloke from Surrey Wildlife trust says that on the site there are:

multiple millions of spiders

Including this beauty - the great fox spider.

‘I still can’t handle the big ones’: the new wave of spider hunters scouring Britain’s heaths

Having already discovered the presumed extinct great fox-spider, Mike Waite goes hunting on MoD land armed with a pair of his wife’s tights, an old medicine syringe and plastic cups

www.theguardian.com

 

[Epona]

Found this wee fella today (well yesterday afternoon now eyes clock with suspicion), a Flower Crab Spider - a pretty name for a pretty creature

It sits still on its branch or leaf with its massive long front legs in the air, and when its prey comes in range, it grabs it out of the air. Cool as fuck

 

[Epona]

And what I think is a wolf spider



(all spiders and other inverts were released unharmed)

 

[farmerbarleymow]

 

[farmerbarleymow]

An interesting article

The Thoughts of a Spiderweb

Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.

getpocket.com

 

[Epona]

Wow, I am not an expert on keeping spiders but none of those has any interesting habitat, cover, or environmental enrichment of any sort - just each sitting in a box, nowhere to hide, nothing to do - that doesn't seem right.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Wow, I am not an expert on keeping spiders but none of those has any interesting habitat, cover, or environmental enrichment of any sort - just each sitting in a box, nowhere to hide, nothing to do - that doesn't seem right.

Maybe the social and environmental needs of spiders has changed in sixty years. Spiders in those days would remember rationing so might have been happy with their little boxes.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

From

 

[Epona]

Just saw my resident teg again yesterday, he'd come out from the shelf where he lives behind some decorative bottles (good spot, as they are decorative they never get moved).

 

[farmerbarleymow]

 

[Epona]

That's going to give moochedit nightmares!

 

[platinumsage]

My first time on this thread. I went to an afternoon course for arachnophobes recently. Beforehand I'd run out of a room containing a house spider and tape the door shut, at the end of this course I held a Mexican red-knee tarantula.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

That's going to give moochedit nightmares!

I bet there are several living under his bed as we speak.

 

[Epona]

Me: My spider's out from his hiding spot if you want to have a look at him while you're in the kitchen, don't poke at him though, I don't want you disturbing him
OH: It's alright, I won't disturb your spider rolls eyes

(This is what passes as completely normal conversation chez Epona )

 

[farmerbarleymow]

 

[iona]

Me: My spider's out from his hiding spot if you want to have a look at him while you're in the kitchen, don't poke at him though, I don't want you disturbing him
OH: It's alright, I won't disturb your spider rolls eyes

(This is what passes as completely normal conversation chez Epona )

I talk to my kitchen spider

 

[Epona]

I talk to my kitchen spider

Aye well the reason I started this thread (my second most successful thread on Urban bows ) was due to my observations of a spider (Larinioides sclopetarius) just outside my kitchen window, I watched her for months, I learned so much about them - from seeing her building her web and repairing it regularly, her sleeping and eating habits, and the mating dance the male does when he arrives on her web so she knows he's a potential mate and not food - I also posted my observations on an arachnid message board because I felt I got some really good info about that particular species

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I talk to my kitchen spider

I've always talked to spiders. That's completely normal, right?

 

[Epona]

I've always talked to spiders. That's completely normal, right?

I didn't talk to the one outside my kitchen window, she wouldn't have been able to hear me through the double glazing

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Makes me wonder how spiders perceive human voices - can they even hear for a start? If they can hear I guess it must sound very loud given our size differential.

 

[moochedit]

Makes me wonder how spiders perceive human voices - can they even hear for a start? If they can hear I guess it must sound very loud given our size differential.

Yes they can

Spiders don't have ears - but they can still hear you coming

Some find spiders and their hairy legs terrifying. But research has shown those hairs are so sensitive they can detect human speech from several metres away

www.theguardian.com

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Yes they can

Spiders don't have ears - but they can still hear you coming

Some find spiders and their hairy legs terrifying. But research has shown those hairs are so sensitive they can detect human speech from several metres away

www.theguardian.com

Good. So they can hear your scurrilous words about them, and are no doubt plotting your comeuppance.

 

[moochedit]

Good. So they can hear your scurrilous words about them, and are no doubt plotting your comeuppance.

I did like this bit....

This was a technical feat because the spider’s body is pressurised like an inflated tyre, meaning that previous attempts to record from their brains typically caused the spider to explode as soon as a hole was drilled in the outer shell.

What a funny story

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I did like this bit....



What a funny story

No point in trying to study your brain as all we'd find is an empty space.

 

[Epona]

No point in trying to study your brain as all we'd find is an empty space.

It might be full of spiders then, they like warm dark empty spaces

 

[farmerbarleymow]

It might be full of spiders then, they like warm dark empty spaces

Just waiting to burst out of his eyes when he's asleep, probably.

 

[Epona]

I talk to this one, this is my resident teg.

It's been in that spot since last October, behind some decorative bottles and I am just leaving it be (apart from talking to it occasionally, and reminding OH to leave it alone - thankfully it is too high up for my elderly cat to get to!)

Males can live for around 18 months, females for up to 3 years. I don't see this one up close very often but I think it might be a male cos it has slightly rounded pedipalps. Anyway this is a fairly decent phone camera macro photo of him sitting in his funnel shaped web behind the bottles.

 

[Callie]

Found this wee fella today (well yesterday afternoon now eyes clock with suspicion), a Flower Crab Spider - a pretty name for a pretty creature

It sits still on its branch or leaf with its massive long front legs in the air, and when its prey comes in range, it grabs it out of the air. Cool as fuck

View attachment 372478

Found one having dinner on the way home!!

Misumena vatia on some kind of umbelifer

 

[Callie]

And what I think is a wolf spider

View attachment 372479

(all spiders and other inverts were released unharmed)

He (? I think those are pedipalps at the front?) Might be a raft spider? Dolomedes fimbriatus