Spiderwords ::: On Spiders - by John Urbancik

Spiders, Spiders Everywhere

by John Urbancik

Where do spiders live? Where can you go to escape them? Where would you live if you were a spider?

If you’re a golden orb spider, you’d live on a web, maybe in the park on near the beach. Perhaps you’re a wolf spider, with some silky burrow to which you return each dawn. Maybe you’re a desert scorpion or a rainforest scorpion. (Yes, scorpions are part of the Arachnida family, though some are born under the sign of Virgo.)

Spiders live pretty much everywhere. There are around 40,000 different types (known to us), so they’ve got to have quite a few some-places to live. We have too many eaves and gardens to not have a few living close by.

However, it should be no surprise to find spiders living in some less-local places than our bathroom pipes.

Everyone knows Tasmania. Remember that Bugs Bunny characters, Taz? Truth is, the Tasmanian devil does eat just about everything--flesh and bone--and leaves behind not a trace. I’ve seen one in the wild; they’re actually rather cute. They live on a small island called Tasmania (which, by island standards, is rather large, some 26,000 square miles, but small when you consider the overall size of the world and how much of it is taken up by this Australian state). Tasmanian devils live no where else (except perhaps in zoos). They are not alone amongst creatures that live exclusively in (or on) Tasmania.

There’s the Tasmanian Cave Spider. It’s got relatives (the Carrai Cave Spider, which lives only in the moist rainforests of the Carrai Plateau of New South Wales--also Australia; and perhaps the two breeds of U.K. cave spiders, as examples). They live in places untouched by daylight, though tend to linger near cave mouths. Why? That’s the best place for a web to ensnare Cave Crickets.

I don’t make things like this up.They don’t much like light, bu Cave Crickets in Tasmania - Photo by John Urbancik

t have good vision--a rarity among spiders, apparently. They’ve got traits of both Ancient and Modern spiders. Scientists are very interested in their webs, as they seem to contain a unique chemical that’s effective for battling bacterial and fungal infections.

Their courtship ritual doesn’t vary all that much from what some guys seem to do to girls at bars: for as long as six hours, the male taps the female’s head with one of his legs. Sound seductive? He has to get close to her and yet avoid being bitten. Yep, if she’s not eaten in a while, he’s dinner.

Think caves run deep? Some species of sea spiders can live 7,000 meters below the surface. For comparison, giant squid typically feed at a depth of a mere 1,000 meters. Most sea spiders, however, live in shallower waters, in places as warm as the Mediterranean or as shockingly cold as the Antarctic. It’s been difficult to accurately classify these sea denizens, but they’re generally believed to be related to horseshoe crabs, ticks, mites, and spiders.

In the Antarctic, there’s an orange sea spider with ten or twelve legs, a diameter of about 15 centimeters (another type can grow to two feet), and an appetite for sea anemones. Here, where the surface temperature is generally well below freezing, it’s warmer underwater.

Most sea spiders, however, are smaller than that, smaller even than the anemones upon which they dine; therefore, though sea spiders insert a proboscis into its prey and suck out nutrients as if through a straw, anemones generally survive the ordeal.

Some sea spiders swim; most crawl (like land spiders), and crawl so slowly they’re generally not noticed. They’ve been doing this for a long time; sea spider fossils have been found in volcanic ash from 425 million years ago near Herefordshire in the United Kingdom

What’s all this mean? Basically, if you have a fear of spiders, you’re in some trouble. You can’t escape them even in the frozen desert of the Antarctic or the earth’s deepest and most remote caves. Good luck.

Born in New York, and having spent some time in Florida, John Urbancik is now in Sydney, Australia. His first novel was Sins of Blood and Stone, now out of print though Shocklines and Amazon may still have copies. Most recently, he was featured in Delirium's New Dark Voices--also sold out from the publisher, also still available in some places . There is an unconfirmed rumor that his novella Wings of the Butterfly will come out in late 2006. You can find a lot of his photography at www.darkfluidity.com.