Brown recluse spiders (and other common spiders)

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In my yard this week, it seemed like there were spiders, spiders everywhere I looked. Many people are afraid of spiders, but with over 3,000 spider species in North America, they are common residents and visitors in our gardens. Most are considered beneficial because they eat insect pests that would otherwise cause significant damage to our plants, flowers, and vegetables.

I don’t consider myself to be an arachnophobe. However, I grew up in a house that was infested with brown recluses, one the few poisonous spiders in our part of the world. My parents refused to use any sort of pesticides in our house, which was no doubt healthy in a “preventing-us-from-getting-cancer” sort of way, but mom was a little nuts when it came to her pet spiders. One recluse set up house in a kitchen cabinet, and mom wouldn’t kill it because, “It earned its keep killing cockroaches.” That little nugget might lead you to believe that mom kept a messy house, but truthfully, our house was pretty tidy and clean. We did, however, have a frightening number of brown recluses that crept out of nooks and crannies at night, and in all fairness to mom, they probably did kill any roaches that dared to enter our house.

To this day, I can identify the silhouette of a brown recluse in virtual darkness from across a room. Without my glasses on. They completely unnerve me, and one of the only things that can make me scream, as an adult, is an unidentified spider running across my skin. I come unglued. But as long as I know it isn’t a recluse, I’m okay with them. Mostly. Even black widows don’t evict the same reaction as a brown recluse.

Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

Brown Recluse Spider

Brown recluses are very nonaggressive, shy spiders, but they still creep me out.

So that’s a little background to my relationship with spiders. I’m not entirely comfortable with them, but I tolerate them as long as they aren’t poisonous.

I find many spiders to be very beautiful, and some of them I truly love, like jumping spiders and orb weavers. It’s hard to match the splendor of a damp morning with the first light of dawn igniting the patterns of a dozen dew-covered spider webs. But they also take a toll on my butterflies, and that sometimes makes me sad. This is life and death in the garden.

Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

Most people are familiar with Argiope (orb-weaver) spiders. This is the harmless Argiope aurantia, commonly known as a yellow garden spider. 

In the future, I will blog about some of the individual spider species that are likely to be encountered in the garden. Today I just wanted to share some of the pictures I took this week of spiders doing spider things in my yard. Everywhere I looked, I saw another spider.

Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

This jumping spider is hunting a Gulf Fritillary. The spider may be a Bold Jumper, Phidippus audax.

I found three different colors of goldenrod crab spiders, Misumena vatia. Evidently they can change their color to match their surroundings. This makes it difficult for lay-persons like me to make definitive identifications. (I was quite proud of myself for finding three different types of crab spiders until I started doing research…)

Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

A beautiful goldenrod crab spider, on, surprise(!), goldenrod. 

Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

Despite being a slightly different color, I believe this is also a goldenrod crab spider. This one was on a sunflower.

Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

This, too, is probably a goldenrod crab spider.

Last month I found a green lynx spider on one of my coleus. This week, I found one on a sunflower.

Green lynx spider. 

Sometimes spiders will catch a butterfly.

This spider caught a Sachem skipper for dinner.

But often they miss. It’s not easy being a hunter. That Gulf Fritillary from above? He got away.

 

Meet Leslie Miller

Leslie Ann Miller shares 3.5 acres in rural Oklahoma with birds, butterflies and wide variety of animals. She is currently transforming her yard with plantings…

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