About 3 weeks ago, I was looking out of my livingroom sliding window when I noticed a large bodied spider hanging from a single thread at eye level. I blew gently through the screen and got him rocking. He wasn’t impressed. I blew harder, and he still wasn’t impressed. A storm hit us that evening, and he disappeared from view. He must have taken shelter under the eaves because he was back the next day.
Well, this past Monday there suddenly were TWO big, fat bodies spiders. I’m thinking that, if they are male/female, I might be getting a family of them at some point. Wasps and yellow jackets like to cruise the eaves when I’m on my deck, so they may be my allies and capture some of them for food.
I’m thinking they qualify as “house spiders” because, even though they are outside, they are using my abode as their home. Below is picture that closely resembles them. Their bodies, however, are not a deep brown but rather a grayish brown.
Possibly! But it’s high risk behavior as your house spider could also end on the wasps dinner plate.
In the meantime look for spider egg sacs babies!
There is an active bald faced hornet nest in a light fixture above my deck. Fascinating to watch. We’re peacefully coexisting. They hunt down the flies.
There is a hummingbird feeder hanging about the same height around the corner and we’ve seen the hummers investigate the hornet nest. One day a couple weeks ago a big gash appeared in the side of the nest and there were larvae from the nest on the deck. My guess is the hummers know it’s a fiercely guarded food source so they tag team it.
In a days time the gash was repaired by the hornets.
That’s an urban legend. The “daddy longlegs” most Americans mean are harvestmen, which aren’t spiders and have no venom glands or fangs at all. Cellar spiders are also sometimes called daddy longlegs; they do have venom, but it isn’t especially dangerous to humans, and their fangs are not “too small” to penetrate skin.
Hey, look at the bright side! Cellars are dark, dank, and full of all kinds of creepy, crawly bugs like silverfish, centipedes, earwigs, etc. Spiders will dispose of them for you.
It must be paradise compared to their natural situation because we provide the light that attracts insects, so they just eat very well,” Sierwald said.
Ah! I have an evening lamp near my spider window. Perhaps I should leave it on when I go to bed.
It’s misleading to call that an infestation of spiders. The spiders would never have reached that population without plenty of food… What else was the plant infested with?
She doesn’t have an army – at least, not yet. All she seems to have so far is a childless couple.
But insects (yes, spiders are insects – don’t get all academic on me – I know a bug when I see one!) can form families and entire suburban communities with remarkable speed, so there’s that to worry about.
