SPIDER

[RemyZee]

This a thread to post pictures, videos or facts about spiders! Are you scared of them? Are they scared of you? The Mirror Spider reflects light like a disco ball.

 

[the_tortoise]

Wolf spider mothers carry their babies with them on their backs.

Wolf spiders also hunt their prey down - actually running and chasing them, rather than relying on a web to trap them.

I am scared of the very poisonous ones, and they make me nervous or panicked when I suddenly find them on my person (like the memorable night I woke up to a large spider running across my face)...

Otherwise I consider them fascinating and beautiful friends, since they eat flies and other pests and most spiders in my part of the world are harmless. Unless someday thousands overran my home or something, they are welcome to live in my house. If they are aggressive (likely because I have made them feel threatened - so they are basically just trying to startle me and make a run for it ...the jumping spiders i have experienced this with mostly) or I am worried I am going to squish them accidentally, I capture them in a jar and put them outside...but usually I just leave them alone.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

I love the big orange orb weavers that live in every garden. They are such gentle spiders. You can even touch the web next to an orb weaver, and they will shy away from your finger rather than getting aggressive.

Also they don't like being indoors. Unless they get lost, or are brought in by accident, they never ever come in the house. Their happiest place is up in a bush or against a fence above a little garden. They are great friends.

If a string from a spider web is in your path, just pick up a little stick off the ground, touch it to the web string to adhere it, and then move the string to the side, anchoring it elsewhere, so the web stays up, but out of your way.

Orange orb weavers are my buddies <3

 

[Outdated]

Wolf spiders also hunt their prey down - actually running and chasing them, rather than relying on a web to trap them.

We get them here too, and there's huge numbers of them that you never normally notice. Probably only in summer in Canada, but if you shine an LED torch across short grass late at night you see all the eyes light up like little white stars in the grass.

Australia has another hunter like that that we call the Huntsman, it's a bit bigger though.

They also run and chase down prey and in the tropics they're very active. One day a big one raced up my leg then launched itself off of my shoulder to catch a wasp that was hovering near me. It all happened too quick for me to really react. They're completely harmless to humans and most Aussies love them but they terrify tourists.

We've got more than 1500 species of spider and they're still discovering more of them all the time. It's estimated that only about one third of Australian plants and wildlife have been properly documented. Here's one of the recent discoveries:

 

[SusanLR]

I have a fear of spiders to the ultimate degree.
The only spider I don't mind is the Orchard Spider. They are pretty iridescent green gold and orange in the sun and build dreamcatcher like webs.

All other spiders Stay Out!