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Posts Tagged: spiders
Exciting News from Jason Bond Lab About Trapdoor Spiders
If you like learning about trapdoor spiders, be sure to read the newly published research from the arachnology laboratory of Professor Jason Bond, University of California, Davis. Bond wears several hats: he is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed...
PkorematsuiMale
Gotta Love Those Spiders
Gotta love those spiders! What, you don't? They scare you? And you scream? Fear not. Arachnologists will set the record straight. (Maybe not your scream, though!) Just in time for Halloween, the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and...
This is a Calisoga spider that Rodrigo Monjaraz-Ruedas will discuss at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar on Oct. 30. (Photo by arachnologist Marshal Hedin, San Diego State University)
Next Seminar to Focus on Spiders
Just in time for Halloween, the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar will be on spiders. Arachnologist Rodrigo Monjaraz-Ruedas of San Diego State University's Department of Biology, will speak on "Ring Species,...
This is a Calisoga spider that Rodrigo Monjaraz-Ruedas will discuss at his seminar on Oct. 30. (Photo by Marshal Hedin)
Professor Jason Bond: President-Elect of American Arachnological Society
Jason Bond, professor and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is the newly elected president-elect of...
A Spider Year
Cruising the avocado orchard, checking out the irrigation system
Then Bang!!!!!!! What hit me?????
A little closer look, after clearing some sticky stuff off my head and hair and face and shirt and still not getting it completely off.
And there's the remainder of a spider web with a spider in the center of it (that brown blob near the top right)
And high in the sky there's another spider above my head (that little little dot)
I must have initially hit “signal threads” which alert the spider that I was coming, because just as I took these photos, it had scampered off into hiding in a leaf. I tried to get more close-ups but the spider just did not want to get close. It looked like the an unidentified species of Araneidae family of orb weaver spiders that is common in the Ventura/Santa Barbara area.
They have been common all spring and summer this year. The Year of the Orb Spider, maybe. It's been an unusual year with all the rain and mild weather. They feed on all manner of insects that fly into their webbing – thrips, whiteflies, moths, even hummingbirds have been known to be caught up in orb weaver webbing.
They are usually most active at night and morning, repairing the webbing from the night's catches and other orchard intruders. Their webbing can stretch for several feet between branches, with the web catching portion (where the circular part is most intensive) from 6 – 18 inches.
This year has also seen a flurry of infestation by the Caloptilia avocado leaf roller/miner. Maybe that's why there's been so much more spiders, since there's more food.
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=48887
Whatever the cause of the increased orb spiders is, it's best to thread your way through the orchard with an outstretched branch, used like the wand of a conductor, acting like you know what you are doing.
A study about orb spiders from 1980 in San Diego is available online:
California Avocado Society 1980 Yearbook 64: 153-186 A Study of Neoscona oaxacensis (Araneae: araneidae) in Commercial Avocado Orchards in San Diego County, California Frank Henry Pascoe Candidate for degree of Master of Science in Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California.
https://www.avocadosource.com/cas_yearbooks/cas_64_1980/cas_1980_pg_153-186.pdf
Image: Lea Boyd, Saticoy, CA 2023
