Brown recluses thrive in Santa Fe.
On Oct 9, 2010, at 3:23 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
What about the brown recluse, which the furnace man worried about
today as he disappeared into our crawl space. Oh, I guess it
doesn’t live here? Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider#Distribution
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]
On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 10:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Name this spider
My $.02
It looks (and by description of it's web) like what I know of as an
"Orb Web" Spider. Common enough in Northern NM and harmless (to
humans) despite the sinister (downright ugly?) look. There seem to
be a *lot* of spiders referred to as "orb web" including Araneus
gemmoides.
The only spider I give the least pause for in this area is the
obvious and cliched black widow. I've encountered them "often
enough" but have never felt more than mildy threatened by them...
they never seem to live anywhere I want to live, though they do seem
to live places I feel the need to visit (crawlspaces, etc.) from
time to time. I usually ignore them but occasionally do the smash-
and-grind-to-a-pulp thing when they appear somewhere I don't want to
run into them unexpectedly (inside the house in particular) again.
My lack of encounters with Black Widows may be a result of my high
tolerance for Pholcus phalangioides (Daddy Longlegs) who are reputed
to finding black widows a special delicacy. In my current (rural)
home the only spiders I ever see are Daddy Longlegs, Orb Web/
CatFaces (your new friend), Black Widows, and what I think of as a
"wolf spider" by their behaviour and appearance, but no close
inspections.
These spiders creeped me out pretty much when I first encountered
them, but now find them quite entertaining.
- Steve
Hoping there's someone on this list that knows something about
spiders in New Mexico... There were two of these hanging out just on
the outside of my house in Santa Fe. One had made a large somewhat
circular web about 2 ft across. At night it would sit in the
middle, during the day it would hide in a corner. You can get an
idea of the size from the tines of the dining fork. I think they
are big. I've not yet been successful in finding anything online
that seems to come any where close. Any ideas on what type it is,
should I be worried?
Let me know if you'd like a higher res. image.
Thanks,
Robert C
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
"How quickly weeks glide away in such a city as New York, especially
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
