Nature fans put spider love on display
NORTH DUMFRIES — Spiders get a bad rap but not from three fans who praise them as smart, helpful predators.
“I find them really interesting, especially jumping spiders” said Michaela Lane. “They look so intelligent.”
“They’re expressive,” said Evelyn Lane. “They’ll eat anything that moves.”
“Everybody underestimates spiders,” said Gerry Blagoev. He feels it’s unfair to see spiders as creepy or dangerous because they do such a good job controlling pests.
“In Europe most people like spiders because they eat insects,” he said.
Spider fans put their love on display this weekend at the Rare nature reserve near Blair, which invited the public to walk the reserve and count all its bugs, plants, birds and animals. The point is to document every species that can be found within a 24-hour period, a natural census called a BioBlitz.
Blagoev, a spider expert at the University of Guelph, led a spider hunt joined by the Lane sisters, identical 16-year-old twins who enjoy studying bugs and even breeding them.
Elizabeth was delighted to find a female spider with her offspring, crawling across a trail sign. The spider was black with green fangs and white spots.
Michaela watched a bunch of crab spiders that seemed to be squabbling. “We saw a lot of spider-on-spider violence,” she said.
The Lane twins, who attend Jacob Hespeler Secondary School, figure they may study biology after high school. They had a blast walking the Rare reserve and also hunting for reptiles. “I wasn’t expecting it to be as much fun as it was,” Evelyn said.
With up to seven new sightings this weekend, the count of documented spider species on the Rare reserve is expected to surge past 200. Blagoev figures that’s roughly half the spider species that actually exist on the reserve.
The free weekend event at Rare was part of a series of BioBlitzes across Canada to celebrate the nation’s 150th birthday. It drew about 140 people from the public and 50 experts.
BioBlitz promoters encourage people to download iNaturalist, a free application that lets people snap photos of species and record details on their phones. The data is uploaded to a site where experts can identify or comment on what’s recorded.
The Rare reserve has to date documented about 3,300 species on its property. That’s probably one-third of the total species existing on the property, estimates Jenna Quinn, program scientist at Rare. “There’s lots to be discovered,” Quinn said.