[masraum]

Originally Posted by OK-944

Spiders and I go way back. I ran a study back in high school biology class - I’d built some wooden frames, and to each of these added a barn spider (araneous cavaticus I think, like in Charlotte’s Web) - and would feed them various chemicals to see how this affected their orb web designs. Very interesting! (I think nicotine caused the most bizarre results). Thing is…a baby orb weaver will spin a web with near-perfect symmetry, then as it ages (if its so lucky) its web will gradually acquire a “signature” all its own…much as we have fingerprints unique to each of us.

When my daughter was in high school she had a pet tarantula (a “rose hair” which is noted for its gentleness) - and it was the most interesting pet. Lived in a terrarium with wood chips, a couple of rocks, and a quonset hut shaped piece of bark which we dubbed the “spider garage.” Once per month or so, we’d introduce a dozen crickets, upon which the spider would immediately pounce on one of them to begin snacking…while at the same time collecting about five or six more and holding them in her arms for future snacking! Also…I could dangle a piece of hamburg on a thread in front of her garage, and she’d slowly creep out and grab the burger! Oh…another very cool thing, watching the tarantula shed its skin - a very taxing/arduous looking process which took a couple of hours…I have photos (prints from film) of this someplace and will post here if I can find them.

Finally…a number of years ago, while on one of my desert southwest photo trips with my students - our group had just left Dantes View in Death Valley one October evening, heading back to the Furnace Creek campground…when we started noticing a large number of black furry objects progressing in the same direction (west to east) across the road in the fading light. Turns out that they were all male tarantulas…looking for ladies! Turns out that this is a thing every October, and apparently, the females at this point have all shedded their skins and are receptive to mating so long as their new skins are still soft - but are thus also more vulnerable to predation and so are hiding under rocks, waiting for their dates to arrive!

Interesting. According to the Internet, the tarantula mating season around here is May-Jul. I've heard that you can see them crossing roads. I guess I don't get out enough. I saw one while mowing the lawn ~1.5 years ago. I don't know if the mowing disturbed it or if it was already "on the prowl" and the mowing just made grass short enough for me to see it.

Very cool. There are folks around here that have posted photos of them on the walls around their front doors at night, presumably attracted to the porch light. I think if I walked out a door and realized that I'd just walked under one, or one was on the wall near me, I might need a defib machine. I do know that they aren't jumpers as a long fall can damage them. I'm just thankful that they don't make webs that you run into at face height.