A spidery dilemma
I have a patio. It's on that patio where I grow my orchids and other plants. It's covered and one of my favorite things in the world is to stand out there while a thunderstorm rolls in. I have a dining table out there and my second favorite thing in the world to do is to have people over for dinner al fresco --my Christmas Eve dinners are legendary. I spend a lot of time on that patio and I do what I can to encourage geckos to hang out, they keep the mosquitoes at bay. Similarly, insects like paper wasps eat the caterpillars that crop up on my ferns and spiders keep the rest of the undesirables in check.
I have no prejudices towards insecticides and I'll use them if the situation warrants it, but I prefer to have something reminiscent of a functioning eco-gadget available. Watching the cycles of life and death play out, and looking at the dynamics of predator and prey is captivating. I like to assume myself to be a passive observer and so I have a tendency to permit the machine out there alter itself.
Well all of that changed on Sunday. I become watering my vegetation and I noticed something within the base of the pot I actually have a tangerine growing in. By base, I imply the drainage hollow. The pot has side drainage (that permits the roots to air out between waterings --citrus timber like to have aired out roots). Anyhow, here's the the drainage hole.
I do not have a decent lens so the relaxation of the pics I'll use here are ones I determined around the net.
What I noticed lurking round became this spider.
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| Through Picasa |
As a rule, spiders do not freak me out inside the least. They are actually fascinating creatures and notwithstanding the truth that they're anywhere, how an awful lot we understand approximately them doesn't amount to much. Most of them aren't too hard to pick out but past that, no one seems to realize an entire lot approximately them.
The spider I saw was pretty small, about an eighth of an inch long, but I've been around enough to know what it was. I suspected from its body shape that it was a juvenile black widow and sure enough, I got a positive ID from The Bug Guide . The Bug Guide and its companion website What's That Bug? Are fantastic resources for IDing these sorts of things.
It's too small to be able to tell if it's a male or a female but based on my location , it's a safe bet to call it Latrodectus mactans, the Southern Widow Spider. L. mactans ranges as far north as New York State by the way, and there are members of the genus Latrodectus found all over the world.
Here's a image of a mature Latrodectus mactans. Note that the hourglass form is on its underside, now not on its returned as is commonly believed.
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| via Appalachian Light |
That marking by means of the way, varies greatly from spider to spider and lots of them do have purple markings on their dorsal facets. Here's some other picture of a mature lady.
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| Via Wikimedia Commons |
Florida's also home (as are a lot of other places around the world) to another widow spider, Latrodectus geometricus. No one seems to know where L. geometricus originated but its range is spreading rapidly.
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| Via Wikimedia Commons |
Anyhow, widow spiders have a job to do and they're particularly good at it. While it's true that they can bite and that bite is not very pleasant, they aren't an aggressive species. Few spiders are. The only way that the L. mactans on my patio will ever bite me is if I pick it up once its an adult. Even if it did bite me, I have an intact immune system and no underlying health problems. Though it would hurt like crazy and not look real pretty as it healed, it wouldn't kill me.
When it's mature, it'll be nearly an inch long. That's big enough to take down a palmetto bug and that's makes L. mactans OK in my book.
At the same time though, it could also do a number on me. Though I'd never pick up an L. mactans, I could grab it accidentally while I'm puttering around out there some day.
So what to do? Do I mete out the terrible, swift justice of a can of Raid or do I allow it move about its lifestyles in the base of my tangerine? On one hand, it is a beautiful creature. It's flawlessly developed for the lifestyles it leads. On the alternative hand, it is my patio and my hobbies trump the spider's.
What might you do?