Cross Orbweaver, Araneus Diadematus

Day 333: I've always called these "big triangular garden spiders," frequently prefaced with a scream when I discover I've walked into one of their webs and don't immediately know whether or not it was occupied. Fortunately in this case, my subject was on the outside of the window and I was inside which, incidentally, afforded an unusual dorsal view. Araneus diadematus usually presents its ventral aspect, belly to the light. It also invariably hangs head-downward unless hunting. Madame Cross Orbweaver had already scored her dinner and was in the process of putting away the leftovers when this photo was taken. Whatever hapless insect it might have been, she drew it carefully to her mouth parts, rolling it in web fibers as she did so, perhaps mistaking me for a larger predator. You may wonder how I know to call her by a female pronoun. Look at that abdomen. She's bulging with eggs, loaded with potential little baby spiders. Unfortunately for us both, members of this species seem to delight in placing their egg cases directly above my exits. Worse than having this lovely lady crawling up your sock is walking into a curtain of thousands of tiny golden baby Orbweavers, something I manage to do at least once every autumn.

Daisy Defender

Day 255: I have a photographer friend to thank for identifying the Daisy Defender for me. It is a Crab Spider (Misumena vatia), and this specimen must surely be a female because it is so plump. Thank you kindly, I have no aspirations to becoming an arachnologist, although I have overcome my abject horror of spiders to the degree that now they only make me mildly uncomfortable when I encounter them in their own environment. That said, the door is the dividing line between Theirs and Mine, and the only exception I make to taking extreme measures is when I find a Daddy Longlegs. Those I will politely remove and put out of doors where all good spiders should stay.

My fear of spiders was instilled in me by my mother. We lived in the Yakima Valley when I was very young, and the words "Black Widow" were on everyone's lips in the farming community. My mother was an arachnophobe of the first water, and one morning when I went out to play in the sandbox just off our back step, she spotted a Black Widow in the corner. Her panicked reaction which included shrieking, violent physical movements and vividly colored swear-words as well as a firm yank on my small arm told me then and there that spiders were something far worse than the Kidnapper Who Lived By The Railroad Track (a device she used to keep me from wandering too far from home). She did not dispatch the Black Widow, so deep was her alarm; no, she called my father home from work to take care of the grisly deed. I was not allowed in the back yard for some weeks thereafter while he reasoned with her about the likelihood of seeing another Black Widow. It was not as if they were a creature commonly found in open areas.

Nevertheless, my dread of arachnids stayed with me until I was in my 20s, and then I sought to combat it with familiarization techniques. Rescuing Daddy Longlegs spiders was the first step. Even so, if a little black sideways-walker were to drop on me from the ceiling today, I would be likely to have a full-blown case of the heebie-jeebies. Walking into a faceful of newly hatched garden spiders in a veil slung from the top sill of my front door sends me straight to the shower and my skin crawls for hours afterwards, and unfortunately takes me by surprise almost annually. If the Daisy Defender hadn't been so busy concentrating on the small bug and had raised its arm toward the lens, I might well have gone ass-over-teakettle backwards as instinct took control over reason.