I wrote about the spiders in my basement bathroom in one of my eclectic Duluth Reader moments a few years back. Mes Araignées. It begins by mentioning that I had just “purloined” 6% of the Republican vote from Pete Stauber so that puts a time stamp on it. Also I crawled up almost four percent more so Pete ought to be shaking in his boots.
There must be something about politics and spider predation that makes me watch the ones in my bathroom. What piqued my interest back then was a small spider I spied reeling a vastly larger predatory centipede up to its destruction. I spend several hours visiting the site as it unfolded until the tiny arachnid’s victory over the arthropod. Until the spiders disappeared with the winter I watched them come and go as they ran away when a web was commandeered by a larger one or became an empty shell during a nocturnal attack. And when I could catch sow but or moth I would try to drop some food into their homes.
It has occurred to me that a bathroom could be a model for a spider behavior lab. Its bit white and uncluttered. It would be a very interesting place to keep several different kinds of spiders to see their interactions. I’ve always wondered how common incest is among different animals. While in the great outdoors spiderlings release silk into windy air to take flight like kites to other places in my basement, when a clutch of eggs hatch, I presume they have mostly themselves to predate on. And what else do nearly invisible spiderlings eat? dust mites? Something helps them grow. How do long legged celler spiders fare in combat with more squat spiders like black widows? In a room like my laboratory you could keep watch on them without worrying what else might crawl under the door to interfere with your observations.
As we denude the tropics of their rain forests turning them into monocultures like the Goths, Celts and immigrants to America did to the forests of the mid-latitudes we should have more people doing this research so future generations understand what was above ground after it becomes unlivable on the Earth’s surface. Some of the animal refugees will have no choice but to join us away from cosmic rays.
Oh and the picture above. I took it a few minutes ago. I’ve been watching the tiny spider to the right for a couple days. You can see a moth I fed it a couple days ago dangling down next to a much bigger spider that crawled into the web last night. I blew on the web gently and both spiders reacted to the air currents. When the little spider who looks like he/she scooted out of the way of the bigger spider began moving its legs the large spider unfolded in what looked like a crouched position having sensed the meal on the far side of the web and delicately plucked the little spiders web to get the measure of the briefly moving prey. Then both spiders stopped all movement.
Donald Trump should keep note of that. Flailing around is a great way to attract a feeding frenzy.
