Spiders

Is it just me or has it been a busy year for spiders. This is just one week's production. I partly blame it on BREXIT as we can't listen to radio 2 (BBC blocking the internet ) and Jimmy Young no longer broadcasting to scare them off.

Considering the amount of work they put into building their webs, I don't like disturbing them. In fact I find it fascinating watching them.

Roy

( that's my excuse for leaving the housework )

I'd guess that lax human enforcement of building constraints during high June temperatures, plus the reduced density of insect population reported by nature agencies, has induced many to extend their catchment areas to improve food security.

I don't mind 'proper' spiders, but these virtually invisible, long-legged ones that seem to have become more prevalent over the last ten or fifteen years really get on my wick! They don't even build decent webs, just stringy strands that get all over your face.

</rant over>

Rob

The wet has brought out the insects which gives the spiders a bonanza

The frogs have done well out of it too

We've got our own air conditioning this summer, the jet stream has very kindly decided to visit Spain

Great for us, but it's sucking up the Sahara desert and blowing it all over Southern Europe

**LINK**

They seem to be busy overnight so you walk into their web in the morning, apparently they don’t like lavender so I sprayed it round the workshop, it didn’t seem to bother them as much as me, although lavender is not too unpleasant I can’t say I like my workshop to smell of it. I wonder what these spiders live on, flies seem rare in the workshop.

Mike

Mike, perhaps flies are rare in your workshop because the spiders are eating them all?

Jim

Those may not be webs for catching prey, they may be the remains of the trails spiders leave behind, either as a road map so that they can find their way home, or as safety nets to catch them if they fall.

The Wonders of Webs I - Spider Silk - Field Station (uwm.edu)

Your workshop inhabitants may be mainly feeding on wood lice - mine do. Small piles of carcases in dark corners when I move things!

I have a web inside by my front door. It was made by one of those very small spiders with legs much longer than their body. I leave it alone because of the amount of dead woodlice on the carpet (cleaned up by me, I might add). Rather a web than woodlice.

I just hope my (human) visitors tomorrow see the point.

I am one of those bleeding hearts who rescues spiders from the bath. I have always been puzzled why they can crawl up a vertical wall and across a ceiling but can't manage to get out of a bath. There must be an engineering or materials science answer to this question which I just know someone will be able to answer.

The ones that are more leggy than Barbie but have tiny bodies, do prey on other species of spider.

There is a species whose culinary speciality is woodlice, indeed it is called the Woodlouse Spider - a fairly small, portly animal with distinctive beige and red / maroon colouring. It is the only British spider capable of biting through the woodlouse's armour, so other spiders presumably manage to bite the animal's belly. It can give quite a sharp nip as I found once when I picked one up indoors to put it safely outside - ungrateful thing!

If you've many woodlice in the home, more than the occasional stray, I'd look for what's attracting them. They need a cool, slightly damp abode, and their main diet is damp, decaying wood, though they also eat other vegetable matter. I have even seen them tucking into a dead sea-gull. Woodlice love fresh fruit, judging by my strawberries: they eat a sort of burrow and snooze there, surrounded by food. Isopod heaven... till I gently shake them off and carefully wash what they have graciously left for me.

Spiders can climb walls and traverse ceilings because usually those are sufficiently rough for the creatures to grip - having 8-feet drive helps. They fall into baths and sinks but cannot climb back out simply because the surface is too smooth, and I have seen them struggle on walls painted with matte or eggshell-gloss emulsion.

There's a big spider in a rather inaccessible corner of my workshop. A very shy one though. The slightest hint of threat and it vanishes behind the paint tins in an instant, so I have not seen it as more than a dark shape in the gloom.

We had a big one under the bungalow years ago, Boris the spider

You could hear him running across the wooden floor

Just make sure your spiders don't make a home on your body as here Link

Spiders are most welcome in the workshop although I do get concerned for wandering bumble bees.

If I lived in Australia it would be very different. They have many nasty beasts, one is the Red Back Spider. I am sure you will hear about it when Australia wakes up.

JA

The white version may be worse !!!

And there was me thinking it was going to be a post about lathe chuck spiders.

The start of this thread is an example of where it helps comprehension if you have indicated your location.
On an American forum I use a map of the UK filled in with the union flag. Makes it fairly clear so people can understand any slant in my postings.

In Africa we had a variety of spider that was quite wide but very flat so liked to hide in the gap you get underneath a hard back book standing in a bookcase. I guess it now has to sneak under laptops.

Anyone who has served in the desert will know what I mean by camel spiders, fairly big, ugly looking and able to bite, though not venomous their bites invariably turned septic. I hate spiders and snakes, though I tolerate spiders in my workshop as long as they are out of sight. Dave W

Down in the south east of France we mainly get jumping spiders and the occasional long legged type, but the Praying Mantis in the garden seem to take care of them along with any woodlice and such.

I occasionally find some wispy webs like the OP's in the upper corners of the rooms, if i have been away a while but on a much smaller scale.

I wish they wold sort out the wasps but they dont seem to catch those.

Our biggest problem is with the lizards, they are supposed to eat the ground crawing bugs but dont want to tangle with the Ants, even the small ones. I can understand with some of the big army ants, as they are around an inch long and i am wary of them.

Red Back spiders are fine. I grew up with them and you know where to find them, under bricks or similar. They might kill a small child? but adults are fine.

The spider to watch out for is the Sydney Funnel Web, female. There is an anti-venine for the last 30 years. Prior to that people regularly died from the bite. Often found in shoes etc. in areas close to bush.

Peter