Monday, September 20, 2010

Cool Facts About Spiders!

So I asked the exterminator about the black widow looking spider from my back window. I told him that it looked like a black widow with a red squiggly line down it's back. He told me that it was a male black widow because they have either a red squiggly line or a dot on it's belly instead of an hourglass. I told him how strange that was since there was an egg sac in the window. He told me that it must have been the dad and that he got away from the mom (who usually kills the male after mating), but was coming back to eat the eggs. I feel kind of bad that I had J kill the eggs, since it sounds like the dad had the same goal in mind. The exterminator told me that the males are also venomous. As he was leaving, the exterminator told me to take the broom and sweep down all the spider webs on my front porch because spiders only make enough web in their lifetimes to make one web. They absorb the web (Liz told me that spiders can absorb their webs, but I didn't know they can only make one web in their lifetime) when it gets really yucky, and then use it to make a new one. If their webs are knocked down though, since they can't make anymore webs, they will starve to death.

5 comments:

Mary said...

Man, black widows are awesome! Their family drama is better than some classical works of fiction! The guy and the girl get together, the girl gets knocked up and tries to kill the guy! The guy escapes, but plans his revenge! Later, when the girl's away, he comes back to their little "love nest" and slaughters the children! AWESOME!!!

Dana Cheryl said...

Spiders are fascinating creatures. It's really too bad they want to kill me because I think they're very cool. If only they'd live and let live... Well, as far as humans go. I'm totally psyched by the fact they kill other bugs. Not that I'm scared of bugs or anything. Some bugs are very cool and worthy of protection. ie the praying mantis(world class aphid/fly/spider mite eater) OK rambling now... going to sleep. Thx for sharing cool spider facts!!

Mary said...

You are so welcome, DC! :) So glad that I'm not the only one that enjoys geeky facts about critters. I have no life threatening reaction to spider bites, only a visceral one, but I still can't stand 'em in my house! *gag* Hmm, we have lots of "love 'em and kill 'em" bugs in GA. Did you see the pic I posted on FB of the praying mantis we found above our front porch last month? J got a couple of really good pics of it.

Dana Cheryl said...

Oh yeah! I totally dig geeky facts!!

No I didn't see your Mantis picture. I'll go check that out!

Mary said...

The bug album.