This is the second of an occasional series begun last week with house spiders, and (belatedly) titled “Speed-dating the Spiders.” In this weeks Bug of the Week, the BugLady is looking at Ghost Spiders, nocturnal spiders that have a pale appearance. There are 500 different species globally, but only 37 in North America.
“House spider” is, of course, a name that’s applied to lots of different species in lots of different countries. Today, The BugLady takes a look at the Parasteatoda tepidariorum, or the Common House Spider. Because they hang around human habitation, they are the most encountered spider by people in North America.
Ever since the BugLady started her “Bugs in the News” sub-series, alert BugFans have been sending links to articles they’ve come across. Thanks, BugFans! Alas, to view a few of these, you have to wade through some ad content.
This holiday rerun from 2011 was inspired by an amazing flight of spiders that the BugLady witnessed at Horicon Marsh in Central Wisconsin.
The goldenrods in the BugLady’s field are exuberant, with new, brilliant yellow flowers opening daily. Goldenrod blooms late, produces a bonanza of pollen (there’s not much nectar there), and is the embodiment of the insect enthusiast’s credo—“Looking for insects? Check the flowers.”
What do Jumping Spiders and cats have in common? Apart from being adorably fuzzy, they are also both enraptured by laser pointers! The reason being Jumping Spiders’ powerful and rather unique eyes which can even see the moon. Not bad for something whose eyes are less than a millimeter large.
If the first rule of looking for insects is “check the flowers,” then wild geraniums(Geranium maculatum) are the flower to watch right now. Insects perceive UV light differently than we do, and the transparent veins that lead them across the petals to the payload at the center of the flower (they’re called “nectar guides”) are far more conspicuous to them.
Another celebration of insects that are not good enough nor bad enough nor beautiful enough nor bizarre enough to have fan clubs, or common names, or even much of a biography.
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is an English carol that was probably borrowed from the French and that was originally an acapella chant/call-and-response/children’s memory game. It first appeared in writing in 1780, and there were (and still are) many variations of it, though the words were more-or-less standardized when an official melody was finally written for it in 1909.
Splendid Dwarf Spiders belong to the large Linyphiidae spider family. Linyphiids are second in species numbers only to Jumping spiders and are a dominant group of spiders in the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere (where they’re sometimes seen walking on snow). Splendid dwarf spiders are found from coast to coast, mostly across the northern half of the U.S. and southern Canada.