Also known, apparently, as the “celler spider.
I am reasonably sure I’ve got this spider correctly identified because it has two attributes I witnessed myself this summer one of which I found so interesting that I came in from painting our garage soffits to tell Claudia about.
As I was standing on my ladder under the garage peak brushing away dust and spider webs before painting I saw two of these spiders on a web an inch away from each other. I tried not to disturb them because I didn’t plan to paint just where they were but as I brushed I contacted one of the webs. One of the spiders began spinning like a gyroscope. I wondered if it thought the other spider might attack it. It dropped from the web and descended to the ground. A few moments later I snapped another web string and the other spider became a whirling dervish too. I didn’t think about these critters until yesterday.
I generally immediately remove insects from my basement with the exception of spiders. I figure they help me thin out the bug population down there although it is thin enough that I suspect starvation is always just around the corner for them. The other day I found a celler spider resting in the web of a tiny short legged spider that took up residence in a corner of our bathroom.
I had been feeding the tiny spider. For the past three years tiny moths have begun appearing one or two a day for a month or so. I’m not sure what their larva live on, perhaps some towels where we keep our linens. At any rate I’ve been smushing them to keep them from breeding. But I decided to try to catch them when the spiderling appeared. They are tiny themselves at a quarter of an inch long. They have a habit of disappearing when I grab them with my thumb and pointing finger. Still I’ve managed to get half a dozen of them into the web without alarming the tiny spider.
But yesterday after catching a moth I discovered a celler spider in the web instead of its owner/builder. I wondered if it had eaten its original occupant but tried to drop the moth into the web anyway. The moth missed the webbing so when I attempted to retrieve it I once again struck a string of web and that celler spider zipped out of the web so fast my head spun around. At that point I began looking nearby and found the spiderling safely secured between a door jamb and a wall. I gave it the moth instead.
This year neither of my grandsons have shown much interest in bugs. I recently found last year’s tattered butterfly net in my daughter’s raspberry patch…..where I also discovered one of the proliferating population of chipmunks nibbling her raspberries atop a four foot cane. “Tech” is now a greater attraction for them.
That’s OK with me. I’m more interested in politics and history. But I always find it interesting to set my passions aside to watch the life around me and sometimes even weigh in give one side a little push even if it has eight eyes and more than enough legs to stand on.
