Tuesday 11 March 2014

Don't cry wolf

One I photographed earlier

Time to do a bit more PR for my eight-legged friends, you know how much I love them.

I've noticed a lot of wolf spiders about lately, mainly because the sun has finally come out these last few weeks and wolf spiders like it. On any warm sunny day, if you look closely at exposed walls, low lying plants or bare ground, you're bound to notice a few of these creatures, just basking. They come in various sizes and colours but as far as I'm aware they all have the same distinctively pointed abdomen and a blunt sort of head with quite obvious fangs. They also tend to sit around (you know what I mean) for a long time in the same pose - with their rather downy-looking front legs close together pointing forwards.

There are two things I especially like about wolf spiders. Firstly, as part of the mating ritual, the males offer their intended females a gift. It comes in the form of a ready meal – a dead fly (wrapped, of course, in the finest silk). It's not exactly altruistic; not only does he do it to get his legs over, but also because without this dinner it's quite likely he may end up being eaten himself. This way he can just get on with mating with her while she tucks in to her main course. I consider myself very geeky privileged to have watched this courtship behaviour one day last summer (and meanwhile, in an anthropomorphic parallel world, a wolf spider blogs about human voyeurism).

The other thing about wolf spiders concerns the female who takes great care of her egg sac and carries it around with her. A practical reason for this is that wolf spiders don't weave webs, so have nowhere to leave them as they are always on the move, hunting down their prey with stealth (and venom). Anyway, she carefully carries this cumbersome sac beneath her, raised up slightly from the ground so as not to cause damage, and then when the eggs hatch after about 7 to 10 days... oh, this is the bit I love... for the next week or so she carries her tiny babies* around on her back.  Wolf spiders – many species of which are common around the world – are the only ones that do this. Sweet, eh? Well... I'm smitten.  And it's funny how when you're interested in something you can effortlessly store all this useless information, yet still struggle with your nine times table.


 Good song, tenuous connection

* spiderlings (aww)

15 comments:

  1. I'm official saviour of the spiders at Swede Towers - rather that than Mrs S stomping on 'em in terror.They still give me the heebie-jeebies sometimes though. Fascinating information, but the wolf in the photo is a little too big for my liking!

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    1. Very glad to hear that! Save the Spider :-)
      I've found that the more I study them the more I love them (and of course the more I love them, the more I study them). I didn't always feel that way, though, so I think it's probably possible for everyone to nurture a fondness for them over time. That one in the photo was only about 15mm but I was so pleased with the zoom on my camera I had to give you the full benefit!

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  2. Ha, that line about parallel world spider blogging made me laugh :)

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    1. Thanks mondoagogo, it's the way our minds work, eh!

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  3. 9 times table is easy - as the digits add up to nine. 1+8=9 2+7=9 3+6=9

    Stupid number patterns do my head in.

    I'm thinking of the similarity to human courtship ... well to be fair they normally finish eating the meal before copulation begins... don't they? ;-)

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    1. D'oh! I can't believe I've got to this age and never even realised that about the 9 times table (or at least must have forgotten long ago). I'll be so much better at it now, it's always been one of those numbers which just makes me switch off. (Q "9 x 8 is..?" A "..too hard") Thank you!

      And if I ever get offered a dead fly by anyone I'll know they just want to get into my pants...

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  4. Thanks natural history lesson, C. I know very little about spiders and can't say I've even noticed this brand. I'll keep a look out now, though. Great track, too.

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    1. Thanks - I bet if you start looking for them you'll notice loads. Unless they're all here at the moment - which might be the case! - as I counted eight sunning themselves on a plant (within a space smaller than a square foot) the other morning, then came indoors and had to put a couple out of the house.

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  5. Please tell me your affections don't extend to Mosquitos. I can let the occasional spider go unmolested in my room but I have an exterminationist policy with the skeeters.
    I don't want to be wracked with guilt every time I come over here in warm months.

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    1. Don't go feeling guilty, Erik - I'm just glad you don't molest the spiders, of course.... Mozzies, along with fleas and ticks, have not yet wormed their way into my affections, it's true. I'm just glad I very rarely see any and thus don't have to face that moral dilemma...

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  6. We have one of theses electronic things you plug into the mains and I can honestly say I have not seen any spiders or nasty bugs in our abode....apparently conkers keeps them away to.

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    1. Oh I never knew that about conkers, Old Pa, I wouldn't have expected that - I wonder why they don't like them?!

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  7. Would you like to be hit over the head with a sixer!

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    1. Aaarghh!

      (can you tell I'm natural blonde?!)

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  8. Looks intertesting :
    http://www.cristinarocks.com/2014/03/35-decades-joy-division-italian-tribute.html

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