IDA SPIDER
Another sign of a hard winter is supposed to be bigger, and more numerous, spider webs. If the webs in my cottage are anything to go by, we won’t be having a winter, we will be having an ice age!
The Pholcid spiders, the ones with little bodies and long thin legs, are taking over.
They are more commonly known as cellar or vibrating spiders, because they love dark cool spaces like a cellar, and they vibrate if disturbed, respectively – and they are in abundance this year.
Some people refer to them as ‘daddy longlegs’ too, but a true daddy longlegs is just a distant relative of the cellar spider and are actually closer related to scorpions.
Just to confuse the issue even more, most people when referring to a ‘daddylong-legs’ actually mean crane flies.
Anyway, whatever you call them, the cellar spiders are apparently rather anti social and have a bit of a dark side.
Although they look like little delicate beings, they definitely punch above their weight when it comes to their eating habits.
No vegan trend for them as they are carnivorous and the natural enemy of the large ‘traditional’ house spiders.
When you think about it, I bet you have seen less of those ‘big-bodied’ spiders that you were familiar with, or put the fear of God into you, in your childhood, and a lot more of the annoying vibrating little bodied ones.
And I bet you thought they were harmless! Thank God they haven’t found my ‘pet’ spider, Ida, yet. (see picture right)
Ida has been living quite happily in my bathroom for the last few months and by waging war with a very willing Henry (hoover) on the cellar spiders, I hope to keep it that way.
In the absence of other ‘Ida’s’ the cellar spiders will also feed on flies, bees, wasps and even each other, when food is scarce. And they are not only carnivorous but very cunning.
They have worked out that if they vibrate on their webs, pretending to be a helpless insect tangled in the silk, an unsuspecting ‘Ida’ spider will pounce, expecting an easy meal but sadly ends up being the victim.
Treacherous little things, those cellar spiders – I think that little body must be all brain!