Creepy Crawly

It's time for something a bit squirmy to get you ready for Halloween!

Oct 30, 2023

A quick note: This email has spiders (text and images) so if you're not comfortable with spiders, insects, and/or insects being cruel (but doing what they do) to other insects, then this might be a good time to skip on to what you were planning on doing next.

If none of that worries you, let's go!

HAIKU

Over the last few weeks, Honeygloom (Substack link) has been getting everyone into the Halloween mood by sharing spooky haikus and prompts to write our own.

One on spiders hasn't come up, but I did get inspidered (see what I did there) to write my own about an artwork I've been thinking looks quite like a spider web.

Spinning while watching
An intricate web of bones
Ready for her prey

BONE WEB

The artwork that inspired the haiku above.

Available on Inprnt: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/joyphillipsart/bone-web/

WOULDN'T WANT TO BE A HUNTSMAN

I wrote this earlier in the year after observing an interaction between a wasp and a huntsman.

There was a Huntsman in the toilet when I woke up, so that ruined my morning.

For those reading from overseas, a Huntsman is a large spider, not a guy on a horse with a gun or bow, which incidentally I found out was a thing many many years after raiding Karazhan in World of Warcraft. Although I would have been impressed if anyone could fit a horse into the toilet room.

But even though Huntsman spiders don’t try to bite, they’re definitely not deadly, or even slightly dangerous to humans, most people fear them. Probably because they’re ugly hairy things as big as your hand, and they love walking upside down across ceilings, they can run sideways as well as forwards, and they can literally fit through any tiny gap and get anywhere they want.

If you see one on your car, you KNOW it’s going to walk into the vents and end up inside. It will probably crawl up your leg while you’re driving (I know that from experience).

But back to Harold. We have a small tradition that we name our Huntsman, even if it doesn’t live much longer than the naming process.

Harold did have a shortened life. Not disposed of by myself, someone else in the house had the honour of figuring out if he was going to be easy or difficult to catch and release. But in the grand scheme of things, having an instant death may have been the best thing for him.

Why?

Well, meet this little lady.

By Toby Hudson — Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18921028

She is a spider wasp.

I have seen these flying around every now and then over the years, not really knowing anything about them. But that changed mid-last year when I was walking down the steps in the garden and heard a weird hissing/growling sound.

Looking down I saw this orange and black native wasp-looking insect dragging a Huntsman across the step. Initially, I thought they were fighting and the wasp was trying not to be eaten by the spider because you know, spiders eat flying things. But then I realised the wasp was the victor and was getting grumpy at me because I might try to steal her spider.

Haha, no thanks little wasp, it’s all yours.

Either way, I gave it a bit of space and watched it drag off the spider under some tin sheeting.

Continuing my journey down the stairs gave me time to think about what I thought was odd. Usually, when spiders die their legs curl up underneath them. Being alive keeps their legs able to splay out and move around. The Huntsman the wasp was dragging still had its legs out dragging behind it, and it did look kind of soft and limp, not void of life.

It was still alive.

The internet did not fail me. There are many types of spider wasps, the one I saw was most likely a Two-Coloured Orange Spider Wasp (Cryptocheilus bicolor), and what I learnt is quite horrifying if you’re a spider.

The spider wasp will choose its prey, and paralyze it by stinging it. It will then drag the spider away to a nice hidden burrow, out of sight and away from other predators. It will then lay its egg on the spider, and the larva will hatch and feast on the spider until it is ready to spin its cocoon.

The spider is kept alive so it is fresh for the larva to eat.

Sometimes nature is worse than a horror movie.