Nadya's Nature Notes - October '99

By Nadya N.

It's the beginning of October aready, yet sometimes it still feels like summer never ended. On really nice days, you just want to go outside and take a walk in a park somewhere to appreciate the beauty of the warm sun and the bright leaves. But the second you step under the trees - eeww, what is this? Your face just hit a sticky spider web! Now don't you just want to find the little bugger and crush him like the bug he is?

Hey hey hey, wait a minute! What are you doing? Let's look at it from the spider's point of view (with eight eyes?). The spider - who is, by the way, not an insect because insects only have 6 legs and 2 weird eyes, a spider has 8 of each - just spent hours building his web so he can catch flies, mosquitoes and other things that you love to hate. (Have you ever seen a spider’s web in the morning or evening, covered in dewdrops? This is a picture inspiring poets from around the world.) And then his beautiful, well-designed, time-and-energy-consuming web gets destroyed, and so do his chances of having a good dinner. Think of what you feel like if you just spent hours doing an important project, and then - let's use the obvious example - your dog (cat, hamster, venus flytrap...) ate it. Ok, you can stop laughing now. Seriously - your perfect project would be destroyed, your parents and teachers will be disappointed, your mark goes down... and so on. Then you have to re-do all your work again. Now, that's exactly what the spider feels like if his web gets destroyed - except he'd also be grounded with no supper (and no TV - but that's obvious). Besides, the next hungry mosquito will buzz right at you instead of into the spider's web...

Now, if you squish spiders, the next logical step is to conclude that you're a mosquito's or a fly's best friend! Spiders as well as wasps and frogs go all out to get themselves a nice dinner (breakfast, lunch, supper) - and as a result, you have less flies and mosquitoes that are trying to get you and throw a party with weird drinks... Being squished isn't exactly the thanks these weird but wonderful creatures deserve!

September-October is time for small, young spiders to move around and find new places to settle down. These brave little creatures fly like parachutists using their spider thread. It’s amazing that such a small creature could master the air long before mankind and even bird-kind.

By the way, in many countries spiders are considered to bring good luck. To find a live spider in your house (in the wintertime) means success with money - if you don't kill this messenger of your luck. When you find a "Harvestman" or "Daddy Longlegs" spider, it means that you will get a letter or good news soon. So, do you really want to stay without good news or extra money? Now spiders are beginning to sound better and better, aren't they?

So what if these creatures have too many eyes and legs? You never judge a person by their clothing, do you?