SpiderTALK
The first of a planned 32 article series (four for each leg) about spiders
Dylan Ferguson, volunteer Staff
It would seem that spiders are creatures that require no introduction, but, as it turns out, they require an introduction, rising action, a climax, denouement, a coda, eight legs, a steady supply of small insects, and several articles.
You see, spiders are among the most misunderstood of all creatures on your particular deity’s grand green earth; and would it be presumptuous of me to suggest that perhaps there is much they can teach us about ourselves? Perhaps. Yes, just perhaps.
Though not the greenest of greenies myself, with no more of a respect for the animal kingdom than your average former guinea-pig-owning child, I have always had a more-than-average respect for those most familiar of eight-legged arthropods — one which has stayed my hand on several occasions where a less arachnid-reverent hand would have soiled itself (or a precautionary Kleenex) with little wee intestines. Even this past summer, when I was painting houses, I found it impossible to kill a spider though it may have been beneficial to me. The old wives’ tale goes that killing a spider brings rain, and my coworkers and I were usually willing to wield any superstition available in our battle against “The Fates” to “Please, let us go home and nurse our respective hangovers!” Yet, while nature dumped countless spiders in my lap (insects and arthropods being as much a part of exterior house-painting as hangovers) I just could not raise a hand against them.
There’s something appealing and admirable about a spider.
Aug. 11, 2007, a day that is burned into my memory. When I was painting by myself, I brushed a clot of spider web out of a nook (looking back, perhaps it was a cranny) that I had to paint. I did not realize then that I was destroying a home, but I was, as a big, juicy orb spider fell out of the web! And — here’s the kicker — it landed right into the web of another, even bigger spider, who, without an instant’s hesitation, leapt out of its own respective cranny (for so it was) and attacked the original, less-big-but-still-very-big spider! This is true!
What follows would have been enough to send any self-respecting 11-year-old boy into paroxysms of delight.
The new spider was big and hairy and dark, very predatory-looking, the kind we used to call a “wolf spider” as children. I cannot stress enough the newcomer’s opportunism or sheer, focused inability to hesitate as it began to pepper the fallen spider with bites from its fangs. Bang! Bang! Bang! The orb spider was trying to recover amidst this, flailing its many (eight) legs in front of its thorax, cephalothorax, and abdomen as a shield, eventually collecting itself into a makeshift attack position, and throwing some counter-strikes of its own. For an intense second the two arachnids parried and thrust, weaved and ducked, feigning and fighting like two broken-nosed, cigar-smoking boxers from the 1920s.
Eventually the wolf seized the advantage he had from the start. He reared back with a split-second’s terrifying hesitation. Contemplation. Frigid speculation. Final decision.
Action! A precision blow to Original Spider’s head! Right where his face would be!
I tell you, dear reader, I am not the one to debate the existence of pain or a similar sentiment in lower organisms, but, by God, yes, my God, that spider at least appeared to be in the most excruciating pain as he clutched at his face with all eight trembling limbs. The momentary incapacitation of the defending limbs was all the opening masterful, dastardly Wolf Spider needed. Three consecutive blows to the abdomen. All three, surely, full-fang penetration.
His appendages still covering his would-be face, Original Spider began to spasm and seize up as the paralyzing agents in Wolf Spider’s venom began to work. His heaven-delivered victim safely paralyzed, yet still alive and, presumably, conscious, Wolf moved in on Original, leisurely, and began to suck Original’s juices with greedy-yet-unhurried fangs.
After an initial tasting, Wolf, with lazy obedience to the protective instinct embedded in his consciousness, clasped his prize and slowly retired to the ebony cranny from whence he came.
Had I been of an age where I was still unconscious of the rewards of sexual activity, I would not have been able to imagine a greater occurrence in heaven or earth.
As an adult, however, I found the event as troubling as it was impressive (in its own miniscule way, of course). It began to dawn on me that I had always respected and admired spiders because of certain human-like traits they possess. For example, what a great metaphor for our individual life is the web! An intricate work of art, yet constructed solely for the benefit and comfort of the weaver, never able to fully admit another without damaging it; as fragile as it is impressive.
Didn’t Wolfy display traits that would be considered admirable in a human? Yes, he was a murderer. But he might have starved otherwise; no human would begrudge him the right to protect himself. He acted with reason, with precision, he didn’t stall in decision-making. More of a successful human being than any arthropod I can think of . . . than most human beings, in fact.
Isn’t that chilling, though? Is that what we strive to be? Wolfy?
[Here the author pauses to take a belt of whiskey, shudder, and regard himself skeptically in a cracked mirror.]
Hope to redeem my spider-affection appeared in Texas this past August, about the same time I witnessed the clash of tiny titans. A gigantic web was found blanketing a 200-yard stretch of the North Texas Trail, about 45 miles east of Dallas, creating a white mesh hanging across the trees and shrubbery. According to Donna Garde, the park’s superintendent, “It looked like fairyland.” (There are dramatic pictures on the Internet). The gigantic web was built by 50,000 normally solitary spiders working together.
Leticia Aviles is an associate professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia who has studied social behavior in spiders. She has found that, in certain conditions, spiders will form communities to benefit each other. These communities build communal webs like the one found in Texas, help each other stay safe from predators, catch food, and share their spoils. In Ecuador, Aviles has even observed spiders helping to rear each others’ young!
The fascinating thing about social spiders is that, because society is not written into their genetic codes like it is in ants or wasps, they are essentially all equals. Even the earliest observers of wasps and ants must have recognized how they lived in virtual monarchies when they dubbed the colony leaders “the queen.” Spiders, however, are able to operate under perfectly democratic (if not idealistically communist) conditions. Though there are some problems (Aviles has actually written about spider “freeloaders” as though they were beer-swilling welfare-recipients), in most respects, these spiders have managed to create free societies that eclipse mankind’s best efforts! Thus far, that is.
Onwards and upwards, little eight-legged gods!
Next week: spiders and the American democratic primaries. Would an arachnid choose Clinton or Obama?
