September 6th, 2007
nature’s architect
This morning, I spent some time searching for funnel webs in the garden. I soon came upon this beautiful construct among the rhubarb leaves. It seems that the spider decided to take advantage of a hollow seed stem that I had cut away earlier this summer.
I can’t help but think of how such spiders must come wandering along, size up a situation, and then go to work designing a structure that will work within the given landscape. We see a lot of emphasis on site evaluation in modern architecture, but spiders have been way ahead of us on this count for quite some time.
This type of web is built by spiders belonging to the Agelenidae family. I’ve written about them before, here and here. Late summer seems to be a good time of year to search for webs among rose bushes, rhubarb, or other places which can support a fairly sturdy web. The spider hides in a refuge at the bottom of the funnel — in this case, I could see it hiding down inside the hollow stem of the rhubarb. When it feels the vibration of insects on the sloping funnel of the web, it can race up out of the refuge at lightning speed to capture its prey. However, these are very shy spiders and generally difficult to observe for more than a second or two as they will retreat to their refuge at the slightest hint of danger.
On other matters, if things seem unusually quiet around my blog this week, I’m just a little short on spare time at the moment. However, there are still a few Nova Scotia photos that I’d like to share, so I’ll probably get back to them tomorrow.
Tags: Funnel Web Spiders, Agelenidae