Everyone should start counting spiders

[jfz9580m]

Last edited Fri Oct 27, 2023, 02:45 AM - Edit history (1)

I have always considered spiders cool..though I am a bit afraid of the large ones..

https://knowablemagazine.org/article/living-world/2023/everyone-should-start-counting-spiders

Then I learned about jumping spiders: I’ve reported on their impressive vision (as good as a cat’s in some ways!), their surprising smarts (they make plans!) and the discovery that they have REM sleep (and may even dream!). I was hooked.

In fact, all over the world, all sorts of spiders seem to be disappearing, says conservation biologist Pedro Cardoso of the University of Lisbon. He and a colleague polled a hundred spider experts and enthusiasts globally about the threats facing the animals. “It’s more or less unanimous that something is happening,” he says.

But there are no hard data to prove this.

For most potentially endangered spiders, there aren’t enough data to consider them for protection. We can’t help spiders if we don’t know which species are in trouble, or where and why they’re disappearing. And if you don’t care about the loss of spiders for their own sake, consider that crashing spider populations are bad news for a whole host of animals — including us.

I would add a word of caution to that article in the context of wildlife rescue/cataloguing though..while community science projects are cool, people should take care not to disrupt the ways of the wild. Or it might be worse for the poor spiders or any other wildlife! It is always good when people take more interest in non-human life and recognize how much coolness we stand to lose in our pursuit of more shopping malls and other drivel. But tourism for instance actually disrupts and pollutes wild spaces often-more plastic waste, more noise, encroachment and intrusion.
So it should be done with care if it is done at all. Though it is always great when people take more friendly interest in the non-human world.

This is also neat :
https://knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2021/are-spiders-intelligent

[Bluethroughu]

1. This should make you laugh, about jumping spiders.

Our first home was haunted, possessed or whatever you want to call it, so we thought.

There were so many spiders and they would chase us out of the room, or if we noticed them and I told my husband to get it out, the spiders would take off or jump at you.

One day around Christmas, I had a stuffed Grinch on the staircase, and I spotted a spider dropping down from the ceiling, I told my husband hurry get him...then the spider started running on the banister toward the grinch, but stopped and looked at us. My husband was scared, but I yelled hurry he's going to go in the grinch's pocket!

That spider puffed up for a second then booked it right into the grinch's pocket.

We put the house up for sale, and moved.
We Crack up about it almost thirty years later.

[jfz9580m]

2. LOL

Sounds like the spiders won every round ... I am guessing they got to keep the grinch as they apparently got to keep the entire house!

I have never seen a jumping spider. But my
ex-husband apparently has a tonne in his house and he absolutely loves them. He is the one who sent me this article. He considers them his pets..he is too lazy to get a cat and according to him they are like tiny cats.

If/when he starts dating again, his new gf is in for a surprise when she sees all his uhh non-traditional pets .

[Bluethroughu]

3. Lol, he'll most likely be single for awhile...

Like forever!

I'm sure the neighbors had a laugh at the new crazies next door and their stuffed grinch in the front yard, because we were using sticks and stuff, so we didn't have to get to close. Finally my husband put his gloved finger in the grinch's pocket, but the spider was gone.
It was traumatizing.

We still have him and pull him out every year, and every year check his pocket, and laugh at ourselves.

[jfz9580m]

4. That is a possibility

A crotchety ex-wife who is a bestie and a bunch of spiders is a lot of baggage .

Okay so the Grinch stayed! Now I got the picture correctly.

[Bluethroughu]

9. Lol!

[jfz9580m]

13. I have my own jumping spider now!

Just seen one-it is adorable! I get why all those people on Reddit say they are like tiny cats .
I cannot agree with you Bluethroughu! I think it is really cute. It does this little spinning jump thing that is very cute . Man I hope I don’t accidentally injure it..I might have to clean my desk which is hideously cluttered..oh well-on the plus side I might find some stuff I thought I lost .. (God I sound like a complete pig..)

I don’t know if I will remember to check back. I am focusing on a deadline over the next year and don’t expect to be online much till I am done with it.. But I thought of this thread when I saw it…

Happy thanksgiving to everyone in the outdoor life forum and on DU . Happy TG to you Bluethroughu..And I am pro jumping spider! I don’t know that I would want an entire pack of them, but I do like the one I have. Say hi to the Grinch for me.

[Bluethroughu]

14. Happy Thanksgiving jfz9580m!

Have a wonderful holiday season. Mr. Grinchy is coming out to party with us tomorrow, and I hope he has not brought any uninvited guests, but I will not be the one to check his pocket!

[slightlv]

5. Spiders are special critters

In our house. Rather than freak out when we see one we say hello to it and bless your coming and going. Its Grandmother Spider to us, and we feel She watches over us as long as we treat her babies well.

I do watch for any dangerous ones, like the brown recluse and try to take him safely away outdoors.

Our cats don't chase the spiders either... even when they see them scuttling across the floor. Kinda freaks my daughter out sometimes but she knows we're weird anyway... gryn.


.

[Easterncedar]

6. Yes. I like having spiders around, too

I move the big ones outside, but generally let them go about their business.

[slightlv]

12. I used to have a few wolf spiders

who always spun their webs around the entrance to my front porch right about these time of year. Made for excellent, natural Halloween decorations! And I really liked the way they looked, too! Perfect! One year I came out and they'd encased the entire portico in webbing. I hated to tear the web, but needed to get down the steps to go to work. Got home later than evening, and they'd fixed what I'd broken. I went around the back of the house to get inside that evening. Hated to tear it a 2nd time. Who knows... maybe they respected me for not doing that. They never gave me any trouble...

[jfz9580m]

7. Heh

I have had to terminate large spiders twice when they entered my rooms. I felt really bad about it, but my rooms are my workspaces and I cannot afford to have any intruders there. I usually kill mosquitoes without giving it a second thought, but I feel very bad when I have to kill stray geckos or spiders from the garden.

I am too messy and disorganized to be able to afford intrusions into my workspaces even by friendly critters :-/...I have got papers and books strewn everywhere (though one of these years I plan to get organized ..I have been saying that forever so I roll my eyes over my own planning skills , but oh well)..

It is cool that you like spiders

[markie]

8. I have always

loved spiders... even as a kid. That makes me an anomaly according to the article...

I found this information a time ago (maybe on DU... all good things come from DU):
interesting....
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/10/21/why_black_widows_bite_so_many_men_on_the_junk_857885.html

Why Black Widows Bite So Many Men on the 'Junk'
Black widow spiders... enjoy dark, low to the ground sort of places. They especially love to make their cobwebs between two objects. And so because bugs like stinky places – imagine flies, there's flies in outhouses – that it makes a great food supply, right? And to get to the stinky stuff, you got to go through the bowl. So putting your web there is excellent.

So imagine this. It's the 1950s. You're a dude. You need to go number two. You make your way out to the outhouse. You sit down, and your junk hangles there. And as it does, it hits the cobweb. And the usually non-aggressive black widow instinctually runs over and bites down on the new creature that has landed on its web.

[Bluethroughu]

10. Yikes!!

[jfz9580m]

11. Lol

I don't know much about spiders but I generally like all critters with three exceptions: cockroaches, cicadas and mosquitoes. Well I am not crazy about fleas or ticks either.

I had no idea that fear and dislike of spiders was that common. I assumed that in this day and age everyone knew this about most wildlife (it is actually true of most wild species):

Moreover, black widows aren't especially aggressive, lashing out only when threatened or if their web is disturbed by an invader.

That is a lot of human projection by our generally very aggressive species-the fear of spiders, snakes etc. . Most animals..most wildlife just wants to be left alone. They only attack in "fight-or-flight" mode when irked by our encroaching invasion into their spaces to build our fugly malls and other hells. When we respect their spaces, they leave us alone and carry on with their lives busily searching for food and a nice place to hide in..

I love all kinds of wildlife..

[chowmama]

15. I've heard that at no time in your life are you more than ten feet away from a spider

and sometimes I've heard it as nine feet or less.

I live in a really old house with Victorian 'balloon' construction - the walls are hollow and the floors don't extend to the outside. If you went into the attic, drilled a hole and dropped a coin, it'd make it down all the way to the basement. Between the walls is where the spiders are allowed to hang out. I especially invite them to dine on every centipede they can find. I hate centipedes and they love me. It's toxic; don't ask.

If the spiders make it inside the interior wall, I warn them out loud formally that the next time I see them, I will remove them in any way necessary, including death. They need to live in the walls, where their prey/dinner also lives anyway. Intellectually, I'm sure they don't understand English, but I seldom see them the second time I come into the same space.

Outside, I either ignore them or actively watch them. We have a small population of orb weavers that are wonderful. I did have to chase one from trying to block my front door a couple years ago; going to work was unnervingly like an old Tarzan movie and I kept trying to tell him (her?) that I was much too large for prey, but they didn't listen. After several web destructions, they moved on to another location a few feet away, where they lived quite happily till winter and I stopped having to remove web from my face while trying to see if I'd acquired the spider as well.