by the Editor & Assistant Editor

Our fall was enlivened by an entertaining OMVNATalk discussion that some of you may have missed.  Proximity to Halloween may have had some connection to ‘Spidergate’.  We thought we would add our little bit.

First, the authors would note that until they moved here, they had never seen so many spiders.  Do we have the perfect climate and ecosystem here for these sometimes too friendly 8-legged creatures?  Our first week here the editor, visiting a disused shed in the back yard, returned completely entangled in the spider webs that are so difficult to remove because of the amazing strength of spider silk.   Some of us welcome our spiders; others don’t appreciate their bug-controlling efforts.  Black widows (see below) eat cockroaches and flies in large quantities, thus saving your home from these pests, analogous to the Thai practice of having cobras in your garden to control the rat population.  If you don’t appreciate the spider webs around your house and yard, you can try to eliminate them, but you may have little luck, as spiders have evolved to be great producers of spider webs (except for those like wolf spiders and jumping spiders who’ve adapted to other hunting techniques). CLICK HERE to read more.