Mother spider protecting babies:))))

Look at that web..100% waterproof , 100% breathable and trawls the air for food. Superb.

Amazing.....we went the other day to buy fish...from a petshop you understand.....and they have reptiles there and a huge tarantula,

the guy showed me the chameleon but the little rock lizards? were creepy there was about a dozen almost camoflaged on a rock and they all watched me...... Only their eyes moved.......

Brilliant is'nt it what mother nature does.

Mother nature is marvelous! Great shots Mark !

Yes, great shot and great web, Mark. :))))

lovely Mark - me too find them very inspiring

That's wonderful !
They make their webs all over my fuchsias every day. I wipe them off, but they only reappear tomorrow lol .... well I suppose it's what they do ;o)

Fascinating creatures and I used to be scared of them! I have a large one in my little shed and the web is so thick. Each time I move the mower is gets a little damaged but is soon repaired :)

Wow, that's a mother of a spider!Good shot!

nature isn't always kind, but always has a point, evolved over millions of years. Good job there are spiders, or we'd be knee-deep in flying pests. I'm not overfond of spiders, but they keep placing their webs whre I'm guaranteed to want to go but I can't see them before I put my hand in them. There was a news report, years ago, where a jeweller's had a large trarantual in the window, strolling around the display - they never got raided!

Lol, Fran, it is a nice black humour story. Hope, the shopkeeper did not wrap tarantula with jewellery :))

lol bet the spidey was trying stuff on at night, when there was no one around ....

I actually found a link to that story -

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19750825&id=4T41AAAAIBAJ&sjid=I2cEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7191,4122775

- sdly, it's the only one I can find, because it's too small for me to read and there's no scroll bar when I zoom in, so it's still unreadable. But at least it's there! *s*

Great picure Mark, Im always amazed how they can attatch their webs by what seems to be a very fragile support!

Hi all sorry for the late reply on this blog.Glad you all liked this blog and thank you for the comments.The spider is still there and looking healthy,also protecting her babies brilliant.

Fran i will certainately have a look at the story you have found

I am still amazed Pimpernel how they do this wonderful work:)))))))

I had a small pale coloured spider last year perched on a tiny oak seedling, trying to look like a bird dropping. It layed an egg like a pearl, a cocoon, and it bent a leaf round the the cocoon and stuck it together with silk. It stayed on guard while they hatched and grew. It got smaller and smaller, as it slowly starved, then the youngsters made a meal of it, and disapeared. I wonder if it ever pondered.....what is my life all about? Handing on the genes and DNA I suppose? Continuity? Devotion to duty?

I bet that was a Stegodyphus lineatus Spider Dorjac. they young don't always eat the mother. What happens is the male spiders will try to steal the eggs of rival males and destroy them for a chance to mate with the female.

The risk is that if she catches him trying to steal them, she will kill then eat the male therefore gaining sustenance to stay on guard against other males stealing the eggs.

If however the male does manage to steal them, she has no option but to mate again and lay more eggs. This can happen many times to one female...each time she has to relay eggs it weakens her and the subsequent hatching young spiders will be malnourished too. So when they hatch the mother is near death and is eaten so the young survive.

Nature being both Cruel and Elegant at the same time.

Thanks Pimpernel that was really interesting explanation of the strange life of this spider. They are marvellous creatures for disguise and craftsmen with their webs. Abseiling and imitating death too. The silk is the the strongest of substances too. I have never seen big spider guarding a big tent in our garden like the one that started this thread. It does look a bit scary.

I have an old documentary on spider webs, it said that until very recently they needed the silk in industry because they couldn't make anything as fine and as strong, and there are still some things that science can't do that nature did a million years ago.

do you have any idea what kind of spider this is, Pim?

I think it may be a nursery spider of some sort Fran.

British Arachnological Society - Nursery Web Spider, Pisaura mirabilis

http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=Pisaura_mirabilis