I have a friend in Australia that I have not yet met in person, although I hope to some day. I met Renata on Instagram when I was exploring watercolor artists. She creates detailed realistic paintings as well as whole fantasy worlds. One of her favorite subjects is spiders.
Sometimes the spiders are small and hidden, like trying to find Waldo. Other times the spiders are the main subject. I love mornings when I open up my Instagram account looking for daily inspiration, and find myself being greeted by one of Renata’s spiders, full of character and sporting a dignified name like Jules (see the featured photo at the beginning of this post – click through to web version of post if you are receiving this by email subscription) or Colonel Mustard (below).
Sometimes Renata shares notes from her journal about things she has learned about spiders. Recently she shared about why some spiders decorate their webs with zig zags, circles and other patterns. She taught me these patterns are called stabilimenta.
Apparently researchers have many theories about why spiders make these decorations. These stabilimenta could add structural stability to the webs. They could attract prey to their webs or make the webs more visible to creatures that might walk into the web and destroy it. They could provide a camouflage element, decreasing the chances that their intended pretty will see the web and avoid it. The patterns could somehow be connected to attracting mates. Or they could simply be a way of getting rid of excess silk.
I like Renata’s take on the matter. She suggests, “From an artists point of view, I’d like to think it’s decorative. Why can’t the web builder decorate her home? Kind of like curtains on a window, or even better, a table cloth on a table.” [To follow her on Instagram, check out @renatawrightart]
Renata’s recent post about spiders decorating their webs inspired me to want to learn more about spiders and share a post about what I learned. To start, I dedicated one of my walks to looking for and photographing spiders at the Kettle conservancy park next tp my house.
I found several abandoned webs. And I got to watch a spider catch its lunch.
The most prevalent ‘spiders’ were several kinds of Daddy Longlegs, known scientifically as Opiliones. Worldwide, 6,650 species of Opiliones have been identified. It turns out that although they have eight legs like spiders, Daddy Longlegs aren’t actually spiders. They are arachnids, but not spiders, in the same way that butterflies are insects but not beetles.
So how are Daddy Longlegs different from spiders? Where spiders have two body sections, Opiliones only have one. Where spiders have eight eyes, Opiliones only have two. Daddy Longlegs also do not produce silk or venom and have a completely different respiratory system from spiders.
Opiliones have been around for a very long time and have been found in 400 million year old fossils. They are considered opportunistic predators and eat a broad diet that includes spiders and other insects. They also scavenge dead insects and bird droppings.
It takes one year for a Daddy Longlegs to develop from an egg to an adult. The males are much larger than the females and only live about a year, dying after they have mated with a female. The females, on the other hand, live about three years.
Their legs can grow to be 50 times as long as their body. If a leg gets plucked off by a predator, Daddy Longlegs do not grow them back. They groom their legs by sliding them through their mouth one at a time, a practice known as leg threading.
As a child, I enjoyed picking up these critters gently by one of their long legs and letting them crawl across my arms and hands. Now I have a deeper understanding of these fascinating arachnids. Renata, thanks for the inspiration to learn more about these creatures I have been watching since childhood. What spider stories do you have to share?
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