To give them their proper name, stabilimenta are quite literally web decorations. Some spiders, once their webs are complete, choose to further enhance them. While there are competing theories as to why this is done, the jury is still out for the final verdict. They do, however, look fantastic.
In the early nineteen fifties the children’s author EB White was struggling to come up with ideas for his second novel. One day he noticed the additional decorations on the web of a Banded Garden Spider – much like the one above. It was from this natural inspiration that he would come up with the idea of a writing spider and would go on to write one of the world’s most cherished children’s books, Charlotte’s Web. Although anecdotal this story serves as a fine introduction to this most peculiar of insect habits.
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The robotics lab at Ben Gurion University in Israel has created a robot that walks on the ceiling. SpiderBot has suction cups tethered to the ends of its four legs. It aims a leg at a spot on the ceiling, then shoots the cup at it. Then it reels itself toward the spot, releases a rear leg’s suction cup, and slowly repeats the process. Video at the link.
Bowen, Australia, a town about 700 miles from Brisbane, is seeing in influx of eastern tarantulas, also known as “bird-eating spiders”. Dozens of spiders have crawled out of gardens and have made their way into public areas of the town.
While not deadly like other Australian spiders, the eastern tarantulas are venomous and can grow up to 6cm (2.4in) long with a leg span of 16cm (6.3in). Despite their common name, they do not eat birds, but can kill a dog with one bite, and make a human very sick.
They are also known as whistling or barking spiders for the hissing noise they emit when they are disturbed or aggravated at close range.
Audy Geiszler, who runs a local pest control service, caught one this week that more than covered his hand after he killed it.
“I think I’m going to mount this one in acrylic to show people how big it is. It’ll make a great paperweight.”
36 hours after drowning, wolf spiders were able to revive themselves and suffered no ill effects, scientists discovered recently.
A study at the University of Rennes in France found that wolf spiders died after 24 to 36 hours of being immersed in water. But when the scientists came back to weigh the dead spiders, they found them alive again. Apparently wolf spiders can put themselves into comas and shut down the metabolic processes that do not require air. Arachnologist Julien Pétillon says,
“There could be many other species that could this this that we do not know of yet.”
(image credit: Sonia Dourlot )
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Ugly Overload normally focuses on ugly critters, but the face of this little guy won me over. He looks like he’s smiling. Jumping spiders are really interesting and don’t worry, they’re too small to hurt you.
I’m not particularly scared of bugs or spiders, but this thing gives me the heebie jeebies. Assassin spiders have really long necks, so they can attack from a distance, which they do by impaling their prey with the barbed ends of their jaws. Creepy. Sounds like a total horror movie to me, but at two millimeters long, they are completely harmless to humans.
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