Joe's Spider Of The Week: The Orb-Weavers
Spooktober is finally upon us! To celebrate the scariest time of the year, we've brought in resident spider Joe McSilk to give us all some lessons about his unusual arachnoid heritage.
Growing up in the spider capital of the world hasn't been easy. From the day I was born and crept out from the mildewed stack of firewood under the porch, I had to do more than survive with my eight-legged brothers and sisters, I had to love them. I remember the first time I saw one of mom's silky white egg sacs burst open, babies like fuzzy black peppercorns spilling everywhere. Thousands of new family members crawled over to meet me, hungry and curious. I can still feel their tiny jaws nibbling my body. They covered me in a moist, furry blanket, legs wiggling and scurrying. We slept all together that night.
I didn't always relish the early days though. Learning how to spin silk out of my own bodily fluids — not to mention secreting it —took some time. And I certainly had to get used to grasping at houseflies in a dusty corner for hours on end. But you grow. You assimilate. Soon an earwig becomes a delicacy, and you're using the pincers to pick your teeth.
But that's enough about me! It's so easy to start drifting back into the venom-laced fevers of youth. I wanted to start writing about spiders to teach people just how amazing we are! Each week I'll be picking a spider (or group of spiders) to focus on and talking about just how un be-weave-able (eight-eyed wink) they are!
This week we'll be starting with one of my absolute favorite groups, the orb-weavers! Full disclosure, my dad is an orb-weaver so I'm a bit biased, but let's get started!
Belonging primarily to the family Araneidae, orb-weavers derive their name from their spiral-shaped webs. Fossil evidence dates some types of orb weavers back to the Cretaceous era, with the oldest varieties approaching 165 million years old. Back in the good old days it was just us and the dinos, the two kings of the Earth. I've got fossils at home that would make you cry yourself to sleep. Forget this Sharknado nonsense, I'm waiting to see Spideraptor on the big screen.
Orb-weavers are found in a variety of families and make up about 25% of spider diversity in the world, making family reunions nearly impossible to coordinate.
When spinning their webs, orb-weavers spin many radii of silk, first from anchoring threads and then from the center of the web, to complete a non-sticky scaffolding. Finally, they finish the spiral shape on top of the base structure with a different, sticky silk that is used to catch prey.
Some orb-weavers also spin what is called a stabilimentum, a zig-zag band of silk running down the center of their web. The stab (as we spiders call it) is thought by scientists to be a lure for prey, a beacon to keep birds away, and camouflage for the spider. But really it's just kind of a status update, a bit of writing to tell others what we're up to. "Looking forward to the new episode of Brown Recluse Is The New Black Widow tonight" or "best place to find a decent ladybug around here?" That kind of stuff.
Regarding the above caption, yes, spiders molt. Let me tell you, it's as unpleasant for us to do as it is for you all to watch.
Most orb-weavers spin a new web each night, eating the remnants of the previous day's work. This is done because as the web ages, it can become littered with detritus, sustain damage, and its stickiness deteriorates. Let me tell you, when you're a spiderling, there is nothing better than gobbling up the family's spent silk at the end of the day.
One particularly famous type of orb-weaver (read: enjoys the smell of its own silk) is the golden silk orb-weaver. Golden silk orb-weavers are pretty big, measuring up to 1.5 inches in length (not including leg span). They can spin webs one to two meters across and have been known to catch small birds or bats. And snakes. You should definitely watch that last video. It's really scary. My great-aunt Deb (married into the family) is a golden silk orb-weaver and Arachnid almighty does she think she's hot shit. Her webs have got this *slight* golden sheen and we haven't heard the end of it since some guy hassled her and a million other spiders so he could make some damn shawl.Yea, as if anyone would wear this dusty thing.
Here's one of Deb's home movies where she's catching a bird:
The coolest thing about orb-weavers is that there are so many different kinds of us out there. My cousin Spike is a Gasteracantha cancriformis and my cousin Barb is a Micrathena sagittata. They do a lot of traveling in the spider fighting circuit (World Web Foundation). They make great cash but silkroid injections have been really putting them on edge lately.
Then there's guys like Miles who's an Argiope argentata. He always used to hang with the art spiders and was a real web-head as a kid, but he's coming around now. He's been living in Fangfurt for a few years, about to get his MFA in visual stabilimentums.
And there's even these folks called the bolas spiders who are still part of the family but catch bugs by just spinning a big sticky blob at the end of a line. A little lackluster if you ask me, but hey, work smarter not harder, amirite?
Overall, orb-weavers are a pretty chill group of webslingers. We relax all day, watch flea videos, and eat lots of bugs, just like everyone else. If we bite you, don't worry! It won't do any lasting damage; we're just giving you a heads up to watch where you're walking buddy! You shouldn't have been playing in the woods anyway. Just sit back, order a pizza, and try to forget about the thousands of us in the walls, floors, ceilings and socks in your house.