Spiderbloggers

It has been a busy spring. I have managed to go on several nighttime spider rounds though. I have seen mostly Pisauridae and young Dolomedes on the wall of my house. There have been a lot of Uloborus and Frontinella. Many jumpers are becoming more active. I see a lot of Platycryptus undatus and Naphrys pulex.

I woke up the night before last with a Platycryptus undatus crawling on my arm. I almost squished it since i was half asleep, but fortunately I looked before I swatted and saw it. It was a large female. I shooed her off onto the floor, and I have seen her many times since. She seems to like the window blinds and the wall behind my husbands gun safe.

I had my 20 week ultrasound this morning. Its a girl!! Elizabeth Eloise Breidenbaugh (Elli for short). Everything is going great so far!

Congratulations on Elli and going so well.

Sounds like your night spider checks are going well. Spring is so good as the spiders emerge and start to prepare to breed. I love it! I hope we'llget details of the individuals you watch over the season. There is a wonderful photograph of your little jumper on Wikipedia, by Kevincollins123, which it is legal to put here:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Platy ... Female.jpg

Love to know how she is going.

This is an amazing photo. Love those hairs. Ours are usually a bit more gray in color here. She is still stalking around the bedroom. I finally found another Pholcus phalangiodes. She is at my moms house, but her web is built between an outdoor and indoor window pane. I am afraid she will not get any food there so I am thinking about relocating her. However, I am not sure about where I should release her. I was thinking maybe a dark wall corner in my house. (I am sure mom doesn't want her in a dark corner of her house! My mom is very tolerant and has grown to appreciate spiders due to my love for them, however I don't think she would appreciate me locating one in her house for her. )

It is a gorgeous photo. I don;t see many jumping spiders - ours tend to be small and dull coloured. But they are amazingly curious. Can't get enough of them. I would be surprised a anyone worrying about a jumping spider in their house. I guess I am so biased now as to be unable to understand the fear I once felt so strongly.

It is so hard to make people understand that there is no reason to fear spiders. They are such beautiful creatures. When people find out my husband and I love spiders they always want to tell us a story about how they squished or stomped a "giant" spider. My husband gets irritated and asks them how they would feel if he told them a story about squishing a puppy. It is rather difficult to decide how to respond to those stories. They really don't understand how I feel when they brag about diliberately killing a spider.

The spider population seems to be a little low this year. Of course, true spider season doesn't kick in until late July. I will definately be able to tell how the populations are by then. I haven't been able to find the lynx spiders in our flowers that we usually have every year, but I will keep looking. It has been so hot and steamy. Thunderstorms or a chance of them every day. I am doing my best to keep the weeds under control in the garden, but they seem to stay one step ahead of me. I picked the last of my carrots, snow peas and broccoli last weed. It looks like our zucchini and yellow squash will start producing in another week or so.

Sorry about the lack of posts. We leave for the UK on Saturday - time to finally test out my research and theories for my doctorate.

I agree with you about people delighting in telling me how they squish spiders. They don't seem to understand how much it upsets me. They also don't realise how stupid it makes them sound.

I am sorry that your spider numbers are low, but hopefully they'll improve.

I am jealous of your fresh vegetables. Our garden is producing almost nothing, being winter. I have so many pictures to put in here and hope that I can before we leave on Saturday. My regulars are all still being spiders and letting me photograph them!

Hope your health is good and all is going well.

Everything is going great. (I just entered my third trimester this week.) We had a bit of a dry spell, but just got some much needed rain last night. Our tomatoes and blackberries are starting to get ripe. There is a Micrathena sagitata in my blackberries, I photographed her and will post the picture whenever I download the pics to my computer. I already had a photo of one but one of her two giant spides was broken off, the one I found this year is in perfect condition. I hope she sticks around so I can watch her. No sign of Argiopes yet, but I am keeping a watchful eye! It has been extremely hot andhumid the past three weeks. I feel like my skin will never be dry again, I have been sweating so much! It has gotten hot early but perhaps we will get an early cool down later this summer. I hope your research is going well and that you are getting a lot accomplished in the UK.

Hi Nikki,

Thanks so much for the update. I am so glad all is going well. I have very limited internet access on the trip, and have seen very few spiders - so it is good to hear your news. The research here is going extraordinarily well. I've met with three Neolithic experts, all of whom are really interested in my theory and consider it original and very rational. The sites an artifacts I've been looking at also give me a lot more support for the theory. So it's all very exciting!

I am looking forward to being home in just over a week and checking out all my spiders, plus getting active on here again. So much fun to be had.

Looking forward to more of your news. Lynne