Lord Larehip

Music is not my hobby, it is my life, it is what I do, it's what I am. If I stop doing it, I have no reason to live, my life would have simply stopped.

My hobby is spiders. I love spiders--all arachnids really but spiders in particular. I can name the vast majority of them right off. Some people watch birds, I watch spiders. I don't collect them (although I did have a pet tarantula once). Spiders need to be free or they can't do much for our ecosystem--which largely depends on them.


The spider is clearly something that crawled out of the ocean and only changed enough to stay on land but if they chose to go back to the ocean, they could. I don't think a more successful creature exists.


Starting about 350 million years ago, this sea creature that left the ocean became the spider. We have spiders preserved in amber from that long ago. Amazingly, it has changed not a wit in all that time. 100 million year old bee fossils show us that bees were wasps at once time. Roaches have evolved differently for all kinds of environments. But spiders--no matter that the environment (and they live in all of them), they are no different then they were when they made their first appearance on the planet.

Their hard shells became an exoskeleton, their spiny points became hairs, their slime-producing organs began producing a new improved slime called silk. Like all, ocean creatures, they display high intelligence.


Tarantulas, wolf, funnel web and trapdoor spiders are called mygalomorphs. These are a more primitive type of spider. They have vertical rather than diagonal fangs, are generally hairy, tarantulas have 6 eyes rather than 8. Mygalomorphs produce silk but don't spin webs. They have two large protruding spinnerets whereas other spiders have 4 to 8 microscopic ones.


Mygalomorph (pronounced "MIG-a-lo-morf") is a Greek compound of "mugale" or shrew and "morphe" or form. Shrew-form. It looks nothing like a shrew which resembles a mouse with a long, pointed snout.


They are superb hunters. Unparalleled masters of predation.


Jumping spiders are classified as salticidae of which there are some 500 genera and 5000 species--the most numerous of any spider family. Unlike most spiders which have poor vision, salticidae have superb vision. Because they are hairy and do not spin webs, they share some common ground with mygalomorphs. But are much more recent--about 50 million years.


Spiders' eyes are paired and each pair are generally functionally different from the other pairs and are different sizes. Although they look exposed, the eyes have a tough transparent covering. You could touch their eyes with your finger and it won't bother them.


Jumping spiders' eyes are mounted on a kind of cupola or tower and are elevated over the rest of the body. Markedly different from other spiders. Spiders are built amazingly like the armored vehicles used in the military. That's really what they are--nature's armored vehicles.


Jumping spiders wear dew drops for hats.


Cute li'l fella, ain't he?

GuD

This is the first thread of yours I like.

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I spit bullets in my feet
Every time I speak
So I write instead
And still people want me dead
~msc

Lord Larehip

But my favorite spider faces are those of wolf spiders. Evil, frightening and just plain f-ucking cool as hell!




Like something straight of out Lovecraft.


No, that's not evil at all!




The wolf spider's eye array has two up top pointing upwards, always scanning overhead. Then there are two large ones in the middle to see forward and these are the most developed eyes. Then four eyes pointing downwards at different angles to scan the ground. Creepy-looking perhaps but highly effective for survival.


Spiders are also natural cannibals and will not hesitate to eat one another with as much gusto as they eat insects. Some spiders even specialize in catching other spiders. Spiders are, in fact, as much the hunted as they are the hunter. Birds, snakes, frogs, bats, mantises, wasps, scorpions, lizards and, yes, people find them quite a delicacy. They reportedly taste like crab which makes sense since they are distant relatives.




I've still seen people uglier than this.


Man, that's just straight out of nightmare.

Lord Larehip

From personal experience, it's easier to hunt spiders in the dark partly because they are nocturnal and partly because their eyes reflect light. Shine a flashlight at night into a patch in your garden or inside an old shed. All those little pin-points of light? Spiders.


Comedy.


Tragedy.


There's something rather disturbing about crab spider eyes, like some amorphous monstrosity staring up from the ocean floor.


Of course, if looking at all these beady, little eyes bothers you, you can always go with these eyeless mygalomorphs from the Dominican Republic. They spend their entire lives in pitch black caves and so don't need eyes. Oh, yeah, that's far less creepy.


Some beady little eyes are on the spider's abdomen. Apparently, these marking resemble a face just enough that potential predators decide to look elsewhere.


Okay, that's just plain weird.


Some spiders mimic insect compound eyes (in this case, a moth's) to fool potential moth mates to approach and make an overture. It will be their last.


While most people in developed nations exhibit some spider fear, about 3.5 to 6.1% suffer from extreme fear or arachnophobia. Some celebrities who admit to having it include Justin Timberlake and Christopher Lee. Others include every single female on planet earth. The reason for spider fear is not conclusive.


Now before we get all creeped-out, remember that spiders enable us to live. They are THE primary insectivore. On average, a single spider devours 2000 insects a year. Without them, we would literally drown in an ocean of insects within a few weeks time. Your house SHOULD have spiders in it and a few centipedes as well. They prevent roach and termite infestations which will destroy your property.

Lord Larehip

Spiders demonstrate astonishing intelligence. Certain orb web weavers actually build dummy spiders out of dead insects they've captured and glue the parts together with their silk (which reflect UV rays). When a wasp decides to go get a spider for lunch, their senses, which use UV rays, are fooled into believing the dummy to be real and attack it about 60% of the time giving the spider just enough time to escape. Many military defense mechanisms used on planes, vehicles and ships work on this same principle.


When I stated earlier than spiders could go back to the ocean if they chose, it was because some already have. Desis martensi build little silk-lined air chambers in rubble left between tides. The tides come in then go out leaving behind stranded marine life that the spiders then come out to eat enjoying a smorgasbord of seafood. The one pictured here is enjoying a shrimp.


A giant sea spider from Antarctica with a 10" diameter leg span. These were only recently discovered. Their existence came as a complete surprise.


Arctic sea spider. Much smaller than their Antarctic counterparts.


The horseshoe crab is NOT a crab but an arthropod very closely related to arachnids. They are so ancient in design as to be considered living fossils. They range in size from a coin to a washtub.


Horseshoe crabs resemble trilobites a great deal. Trilobites were arthropods from about 500-250 million years ago. One of the first successful macroscopic life forms. In them one also sees centipedes. millipedes, sow bugs and other creatures. They ranged from small to very large in size and were very diverse. This fossil is from my own collection.


One can see how a trilobite-like creature could eventually evolve into the spider.


Australian funnel web spider--very toxic.


As dangerous as this spider's bite is, she is a lovely spider in her own little way.


Australian funnel web spider with mites around her beady, little eyes. These mites are not parasitical but simply use her to get around.

Lord Larehip

Trapdoor spiders are the coolest spiders due to their strange colors, shapes and markings. This sun trapdoor spider likes like it was spray-painted.


Trapdoor spiders are mygalomorphs but unlike tarantulas and wolf spiders are not particularly hairy. They are also not as venomous as funnel web spiders.


Strangely elongated abdomen of a trapdoor spider.


Yet the ravine trapdoor spider has a truncated abdomen.


The ravine trapdoor is called Cyclocosmia truncata. The blunt end of her abdomen bears an unusual marking that resembles an emblem or a Mayan calendar.


What does she do with that strange flat area? It's very tough and ribbed so she uses it to block the entrance to her burrow. To a small predator looking to snack on a spider or take over her burrow, she blocks it with what may as well be a big slab of concrete. Their burrows are very well disguised and hard to find.

Lord Larehip

The brown recluse has a face like a weird female doll.


See it? The doll face?


The brown recluse has a marking on her back that resembles a violin.


But with the face and the violin marking combined, it resembles a ponytail with ribbons.


But the little doll face has a very nasty bite.








Another deadly lady--the black widow.


Her somewhat homelier cousin, the western brown widow.

Lord Larehip

But I came to praise the spider not squash her. She is here to do a job and she does it very well, so well that the ecosystem as it is could not function without her.


Instead of killing these creatures whenever we see them, we should consider them custodians that will only accept as payment the bugs that compete with us for our living space and our food. Without the spider, those bugs would win--easily. The free service they provide for us--absolutely essential to our continued survival and that's all the thanks they get from us--killed. We display the most pathetic fear of them. We are hundreds of time bigger and thousands of time heavier and we act like the biggest cowards when confronted by a creature that does us no harm when left alone.


They can live without us but we cannot live without them. This is their world, not ours. We are their guests for as long as they feel like putting up with us. They are not disgusting poisoners--we are. And we had better check our arrogance and grotesque fear at the door and starting giving the spiders the respect they deserve. They'll outlast us and that's good. Most of us don't realize just how good that is.

Lord Larehip

Brian Eno - Spider and I [Music Video] - YouTube

Only Brian Eno could write something this beautiful for our 8-legged friends.

Isbjørn

The poecilotheria metallica is pretty goddamn bitchin'.

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