What do spiders do in winter. The daily and annual cycle of spiders

12.03.2020

Waltz with cricket

Tarantulas of all sizes and ages always perform a certain dance while eating. The authors of this book once witnessed an Avicularia avicularia spider doing this dance on a nearly vertical wall, and Theraphosa blondi doing it with a juvenile mouse it had just killed. It is very rare that spiders do not do this dance; almost every individual from the authors' collection performs it while eating.

As soon as the tarantula grabs a cricket (or other food), it immediately rises on its paws, lowers its web appendages and begins, as it were, to “lay off” pieces of the web with them. During his dinner, the spider rotates, continuing to weave a web. After some time, all food (for example, a dozen crickets for medium-sized spiders, or a juvenile mouse for the Theraphosa blondi species) will be located in the center of this bedding and lightly covered with a layer of cobwebs. After a few minutes, probably for better digestion, the spider will again take up everything that it created: for the web, for digested food, even for bedding, and again begin to circle and weave, creating a new web. The authors of the book call it a waltz while eating. If Johann Strauss had known this fact, would he have written a waltz in his honor?

Hypothetically, this behavior can be explained as one of the adaptations in response to the lack of food in the wild. Since most tarantulas do not leave their burrows and go hunting, devoting most of their time to rest at the “front door”, and expecting someone tender and juicy to pass nearby, it is natural that they have no regularity in nutrition. . And if a swarm of locusts or a pair of dung beetles appears, then this means unexpected wealth in the form of plentiful food. One of the abilities of some arachnids is the ability to grab and hold the victim, and what is left of it, do not allow the abyss to disappear. Other spiders have a more developed ability to hold prey and eat it almost immediately.

Spiders living in conditions where there is more or less plentiful food have developed the first strategy. An example of this is spiders weaving balls from the web (Argiope species). If several insects enter the web at the same time, then these spiders deal with each of them individually. They rarely move on to the second insect until they are sure that the first one is not going anywhere. When there is such confidence, each insect is eaten in turn.

Tarantulas follow the second strategy. They capture the maximum number of victims and eat them as quickly as possible. Instead of eating each victim in turn, all insects roll and intertwine into one lump until the food begins to scatter and the tarantula can no longer cope with it. Then all the prey begins to be eaten at the same time. This simultaneous consumption of all captured prey is a sign of situational behavior due to irregular access to food and frequent hunger.

daily cycle

Only a few details of the daily routine of tarantulas are known. They are more active in the evening than during the daytime. Light seems to be the most significant factor influencing their activity. Minch (1977) also suggested that surface temperature also played an important role; possible interference in their life by other animals is also important.

In the daytime, individuals living in deserts can climb into their minks and escape there from light, heat and drought. When dusk approaches, they become more active, gradually moving towards the exit from the mink. Finally, when darkness falls, if they have woven a veil of cobwebs at the entrance to the burrow, they break through it with the help of the front and side legs, pushing it to the sides. Then they lay down in an ambush and wait for the victim passing by. If the spider catches the vibrations of the soil caused by large animals, it hides in a mink for a while. He can then return to the entrance to his hideout again. If he detects small prey, then he attacks her and drags his future dinner home. At night, the spider can expand its hole or simply lie at its entrance and wait for the next prey. With the onset of morning, spiders usually climb deep into the hole. At the same time, they do not weave a web. After the sun has risen high enough and early morning has come, they return to the entrance to the burrow and begin to weave a web. Then they retire to their chambers for the entire period of daylight hours.

If the day turned out to be cloudy, the tarantula can be seen crawling out of the mink during the day, although they rarely move more than fifteen to twenty centimeters from it. Often they leave behind them strands of cobwebs in order to find their way home (Minch 1978). Breene (1996) reports that the South Texas species Aphonopelma anax is found mostly only at the mouth of a burrow and retreats only when it sees an approaching animal or feels a strong vibration caused, for example, by human footsteps or large animal.

Minch (1978 and 1979) noted one interesting feature in the behavior of wild tarantulas. In heavy rain, spiders of the species Aphonopelma chalcodes block the entrance to the burrow with their body, thus preventing it from flooding. What other little tricks can tarantulas resort to? Do tarantulas sleep during the day? We could answer this question if we knew what sleep is. And even taking into account the fact that their nervous system is most radically different from ours, we probably cannot say whether they experience something similar to sleep.

annual cycle

In nature, tarantulas are subject to a variety of seasonal influences that form their main annual rhythm, or annual cycle. Such influences include day length, light intensity, temperature, humidity, availability and accessibility of food, etc.

Breene (1996) reports that south Texas spiders do not burrow during some months of the year. And the authors of this book once discovered a dug mink of the species Aphonopelma moderatum in the valley of the upper reaches of the Rio Grande in late December!

However, as autumn approaches in temperate areas (such as Arkansas or 1,350 m in Pima County, Arizona), tarantulas may actively plug their burrows with soil and cobwebs. Sometimes fragments of foliage can also be used in this capacity. Bird-eaters can do this several times - as the seasons change. In the end, such a plug remains in the hole for the whole winter until the onset of spring. What do tarantulas do all the time while they remain locked in a mink? The answer may be simple - they are waiting. But we don't really know. Nobody has ever reported this yet.

As spring approaches, the tarantulas become more active and remove the plug from the hole, if any. If the spider is a mature female, she is fertilized by the male and lays a large clutch of eggs, placing them in a burrow. As soon as the spiders emerge from the eggs, they leave their shelter, and the female undergoes a molt (approximately in the middle of summer).

Juveniles and adult unfertilized females molt in early spring. During the remaining warm months they are active, dig their burrows and wait for prey at its entrance. In mid-spring, adult males weave a sperm web and look for females. Many are killed by predators. As winter approaches, older males begin to die of old age, when encountering predators, or as a result of changing weather conditions.

Breene (1996) called this cycle the "autumn mating strategy". At the same time, Breene notes that the seasonal cycle of the Anax species in southern Texas has a slightly different structure - the so-called "spring mating strategy." In this case, males reach sexual maturity in spring, and mate with females in May-June. Females lay eggs in late June - early July, while molting takes place in late August or early September.

Bird-eaters living in tropical latitudes are not subject to seasonal temperature changes to such an extent. In arid areas, rainfall and humidity are believed to play a crucial role in the annual cycle of tarantulas, predetermining the timing of molting and egg laying. There is an assumption that young spiders are born when food and moisture are most abundant, that is, in the period following the Doge season. However, there is no direct evidence for this. These creatures have a habit of immediately leading us into a dead end, as soon as we try to draw any analogies between them and other animals more familiar to us. We just have to wait for some student who is passionate about spiders, who will sit in the steppe or bushes for a couple of years, calmly watching these mysterious creatures, and confirm or refute our conclusions.

In tropical forests, where the climate is warm and humid throughout the year, where seasonal changes are not so sharp and sensitive, the annual cycles of tarantulas are blurred or they do not exist at all.

Arachnologists, amateurs or professionals, have still not been able to determine the structure of the annual habits of most tarantula species, and it is not known what factors are decisive for the formation of each species' own annual cycle.

10. Spiders are insects.
Scientists classify these creatures as arthropods, which belong to the order of arachnids. Spiders can be distinguished from insects even by eye:
Animals have two pairs of legs or four limbs. And the spider also has four. Four couples. Insects normally have three pairs of legs or limbs.
The front part of the body is also different: in insects, the movable head is separated from the chest, in arachnids there is not even some kind of “neck”, the head is combined with the chest into one part of the body, which is called the cephalothorax.
Insects have two eyes with a complex device, spiders have much more primitive eyes, but there are eight of them. There are spiders with six eyes and rarely with two.
Insects are predators and vegetarians, and almost all spiders are predators.

9. All spiders spin webs.
If you ask a person to describe the life of a spider, then most likely he will say that this creature spins a web and eats flies. But not all spiders do this. Very many of the spiders are wandering predators like tigers or wolves of the arthropod world. For example, wolf spiders (yes, there are such). Having overtaken the prey, they jump on the victim and, holding it with their front paws, begin to eat it without preludes in the form of openwork weaving.

8. Spiders spin only round webs.
Spiders are more creative creatures than they seem. And if we are used to round (concentric) webs, this does not mean that spiders are limited to them.

7. In winter, spiders hide from the cold in houses.
Such an idea is very logical: birds fly south, bears hibernate, spiders also somehow escape. But in fact, most of the spiders that live in our homes are the "descendants" of house spiders that have lived in houses for many generations and have been able to adapt to life in a temperate climate and scarce food and water. House spiders have become so adaptable that they have learned to lay their eggs in furniture. So migration is not in the style of spiders.

6. If you find a spider at home, release it to freedom.
Less than 5 percent of household spiders have ever been outside the home. They are even less adapted to life on the street, where there is a constant change in temperatures and conditions, not to mention a completely new world of predators. Therefore, releasing a spider into a new wild world is not the best idea, unless you want to get rid of an annoying creature. It is also worth remembering that the human right to property means nothing to other species. Therefore, it is better to leave the spider to live in his (or your) house, be people.

5. Spiders are not mcan get caught in their own web.
No, spiders are not immune to their own stickiness. They just move through their webs very carefully so as not to get stuck. It turns out that not all webs are sticky. Some spiders weave their webs with small drops of glue sprinkled over them to keep them from stepping on themselves. If they step on one, it won't matter much, as it usually takes several to get them firmly stuck. So when a fly hits a web, there's a good chance it will land on more than one of these glue droplets. Other spiders weave webs so that only the circular threads are sticky, and the ray ones are not, so that they can move along them.

4. The bite of a tarantula is deadly.
Tarantula venom is deadly, but only for some animals. For a person, it is nothing more than a simple hornet sting. Edema appears, but it is not fatal.

3. Spiders are aggressive.
In fact, spiders bite much less often than many people think. They have a self-preservation instinct, and when danger arises, the spider tries to run away and hide. Even a black widow, whose bite is relatively dangerous for a person, is unlikely to touch you, unless, of course, you provoke her.

2. In a year in a dream, a person swallows eight spiders.
Even when house spiders are looking for food, they try not to get in the way of a person. And there is usually little food near the sleeping person.
Another reason why a person simply cannot swallow a spider in their sleep is snoring. If we assume that a person does eat spiders in a dream, he is likely
She sleeps with her mouth open, which means she snores. Spiders are shy animals, and the sharp sound of snoring will clearly scare them away.

1. Spiders are always nearby (within a meter radius).
It all depends on where you are. If you are in the park on a picnic, then most likely it is. But if you're in the cockpit of an airplane or on the top floor of a skyscraper, the nearest spider might be a mile away.
The myth began when archaeologist Norman Platnick began his 1995 article as follows: “Wherever you sit reading this, the spider is probably no more than a few meters away from you.” People took it as a fact, when in fact he was just speculating. Over time, a few meters grew into a meter, and the word "probably" was generally discarded. By 2001, books were citing this myth as fact.
I wonder if spiders have misconceptions about humans?

There are hundreds of species of tarantulas. These fluffy beauties can live in trees and crawl on the ground, and they do it in Asia, Africa or in the warm part of America. And as is often the case in the animal world, the name of these spiders has nothing to do with their daily lives - they don’t actually eat any birds. Of course, if suddenly some careless chick gets in the way of a giant spider, he will not blunder. However, it is not the birds of heaven that are the main food of tarantulas - they are more and more insectivorous. In other words, a cockroach (but not a home one!) Or a cricket is exactly what a tarantula needs. However, a frog or a mouse will fit him, and the tarantula living in the house has never refused just a piece of meat.

If you look at tarantulas without prejudice, it becomes obvious that they are beautiful. Huge (leg span - up to 25 centimeters), bright, fluffy, they look like exotic flowers, but these flowers have character. Moreover, this character is largely determined by the place of origin of a particular variety of tarantulas. For some reason, Asian and African spiders are much more evil than their American relatives, so experts advise an inexperienced spider-keeper to start friendship with arachnids from American spiders. For example, from representatives of the genus Brachypelma - these guys living in Mexico, Costa Rica and Honduras are distinguished by a particularly sweet and friendly disposition.

Spiders are poisonous creatures. However, not as much as it is said in the legends - the bite of the brachipelma tarantula is no more dangerous for a person than, for example, a bee sting. And the more poisonous breeds of tarantulas are also not deadly, but this is not a reason to rejoice because your favorite spider has bitten you again. Moreover, in addition to poison, he has something to please us - teeth (that is, of course, these are not teeth at all, but if something looks like a fang, then why don't we consider it a fang?) in an adult tarantula can reach a centimeter length. As for the burning possibilities, there is a special bristle on the abdomen of tarantulas, which the spider can shake off on its enemy - this is also not fatal, but very unpleasant, and triple unpleasant for allergy sufferers. So, brachypelms can bite and burn with bristles, but they don’t want to - they save their weapons for the most extreme case.

The world fashion for spiders began in the 80s of the last century - and very soon the first tarantulas began to arrive in our country. Then they were smuggled and asked for absolutely crazy money for them - 200-300 dollars each (and at that time, if someone does not remember, the dollar was not at all the same as it is now). Now Russia has its own population of tarantulas, and the price for them has become much more modest - a good female costs about two thousand rubles. Males are cheaper. But who needs these males? A male spider is a short-lived creature: having reached puberty, it will last at best five years (if it is not eaten). But a brachipelma girl can live in peace even for 30 years. Unless, of course, it will be moderate in food. Bird-eaters living in the wild do not eat every day. And not even every week. Moreover, it happens that not even every month: an adult spider can live without food for a whole year at all, and only get a little haggard. However, the loving owner of a spider is not always able to keep his sweetheart on such a strict diet - but why, he looks so plaintively with all his eight eyes, so touchingly twists his furry legs, hungry, probably! And the loving owner of the spider floods the tarantula with crickets, frogs, pieces of chicken and lean meat, and even tries to treat him with vegetables and fruits to prevent beriberi. Well, the tarantula spits on any cabbage with carrots from a high bell tower - he is ready to bite off a piece of some berry only if for some reason he was not given water (in a bowl) and he suffers greatly from thirst. And a normal tarantula will not refuse delicious food. And the more he eats, the faster he grows. The faster it grows, the more it sheds. And the more often the spider sheds, the shorter its age. In a word, the golden words of Plisetskaya "Do not eat!" treat spiders even more than ballerinas.

Molting is an unpleasant process for the tarantula: at this time, the spiders feel defenseless, so they prefer to change the skin in secluded places. The only thing that an agitated owner can help the tarantula with is nothing: the spider should not be fed, missed, and generally left alone. But then, when he sheds, his discarded clothes, which look exactly like a full-fledged spider, can be inserted into a frame and hung on the wall - it will turn out very elegant, and at the same time not a single tarantula will suffer.

Tarantulas are proud loners, so you should not plant several of them in one terrarium. In addition, meek brachipelmas have a bad habit of quickly eating a gentleman after sex. According to experts, it is the representatives of particularly good varieties of tarantulas who try to dine with their partner - and their aggressive relatives, on the contrary, often treat their husbands in a good way and sometimes even live with them. By the way, if anyone believes that all spiders are the same, then here is a refutation: two absolutely similar males behave completely differently after an act of love. One, smart, having done his job, immediately takes off running, and the other complacently falls apart next to the dangerous lady and immediately becomes her dinner. Moreover, the female does such horrors not at all out of malice and not because the male did not please her with something - she simply believes that if next to the future mother of many children no one needs food, then why should the good disappear?

Well, how do tarantulas treat their owners? Yes, they do not relate in any way - we will never wait for love, devotion, or obedience from them. True, some spider fanatics claim that their precious tarantula not only knows the owner by sight, but also appreciates all sorts of caresses and hugs. In fact, spiders just love warmth, and therefore they really enjoy sitting in a person’s palm or even climbing under a shirt, but there’s nothing personal about it. However, not every one of us is ready to put up with such indifference, and among the owners of tarantulas there are madmen who not only eat with their pets from the same plate and sleep on the same pillow, but also drag them everywhere with them. Does the tarantula take pleasure in being put in his pocket every morning and carried to work? Doubtful. But such adventures can damage his health. And this despite the fact that, in fact, you still have to try hard to kill the tarantula spider: their health is excellent, and in order to damage it, the spider must either never be watered, or frozen, or dropped. Yes, these are all sorts of falls for small domestic spiders - like water off a goose, and a large and heavy tarantula may well break. Well, where do you find a veterinarian ready to cure a sick spider?

Well, in general, there is not the slightest fuss with the spider. The tarantula sits quietly in its terrarium for days on end and stares at something only it can see. Sometimes he is attacked by economic activity, and then he begins to tidy up his house: he cleans the bedding (coconut substrate), throws out leftover food, digs if there is something to dig, or inspects the terrarium environment (pieces of coconut shells, pots, or whatever else you have there). invented so that the tarantula had some kind of shelter and always knew that he had a roof over his head).

Many of us are in doubt - do spiders know how to go to the toilet? Yes, nothing human is alien to them, but they do it very rarely and in the same place, so you can clean their terrarium every few months. And we are also very concerned about the question: do spiders sleep? Maybe they are asleep, but they do not close their eyes.

Tarantulas know how to make cobwebs, but they need it in order to make themselves soft bedding or to wrap excess prey in it. They do not weave trapping nets from the web - tarantulas catch prey with their paws and do it so quickly and deftly that you won’t even have time to blink an eye. Yes, tarantulas cannot rush through the mountains and forests for a long time, but to make a swift march per meter is in their sprint powers.

In a word, do not be afraid of spiders - they are very cute and unusually beautiful, as you can see for yourself by boldly looking at the site www.tarantulas.ru. And remember the main thing: spiders are not insects! The spider, of course, does not care - but its owner may be offended by the insect.

Most spiders have a lifespan of less than one year. In cold weather, spiders usually die, as they cannot live in such a climate. However, some species of insects are able to survive even winter time. So, most of the spiders hibernate for the winter. But there are also exceptions.

Such exceptions include the South Russian tarantula. A winter spider of this species crawls into its hole and clogs the entrance with earth. The spider crawls out of its dwelling only when it wants to eat. If the South Russian tarantula gets into a warm room next to a person’s housing, then he can lead a normal life all winter. But such behavior is typical only for the South Russian tarantula. All other spiders that endure winter climb into their burrows for this time and fall asleep before the onset of warm seasons.

What do spiders eat in winter

South Russian tarantula, silver spider and Eresus cinnaberinus do not hibernate. The South Russian tarantula can lead an active lifestyle in winter, being in a warm room near human habitation. In these places there are enough insects necessary for the nutrition of the South Russian tarantula.

The wintering of silver spiders is a very interesting phenomenon. For the winter, these spiders arrange cocoons under water, in which they hibernate. Sometimes they hibernate in empty mollusk shells. Having found such a shell, the spider draws air into it until it floats to the surface. The shell is attached to aquatic plants (duckweed) floating on the surface with cobweb threads. The spider hides in the shell and closes its hole with plant debris, fastened with cobwebs.

Where do spiders in apartments come from in winter?

Often, spiders appear in an apartment or house in winter. People are wondering where spiders can come from in winter if they all hibernate at this time. There are many options for where spiders come from at this time. One of the most important options is the normal living conditions for spiders.

The second option is that cocoons with spider eggs can remain in any crack, in the floor or under a chair. Spider babies emerge from this cocoon. This can happen after repairs or general cleaning. These spiders can spread all over the room. They can be easily destroyed with conventional pest control sprays, such as dichlorvos. In addition to this house, you should remove all the web and burn it. It is also worth sealing the cracks in the baseboard with silicone. You also need to use insect crayons to deprive the spiders of food.

Spiders belong to the class of arthropods.

The spider is an animal that is the most famous predator for preying on its prey with the help of traps. He uses webs as a means of trapping.
The order of spiders includes a large number of species. These animals are distributed throughout the world. Spiders hunt mainly for insects.

cross

The network builds the most beautiful and correct form spider spider(in the picture on the right).
This spider got its name because of the light spots that are located on its upper side of the abdomen, in the form of a cross. The same spots, which stand out brightly against a dark brown background in many other places, form light stripes or circles.
The common cross is found throughout Europe and lives in gardens, shrubs and forests, usually at a height of 30 to 150 cm from the ground.

For his habitat, he chooses in most cases a place in ravines, near swamps, lakes or near rivers, in general, in damp places, since there are many flies and mosquitoes, which he feasts on.
The method of catching this spider is that the cross sits, hiding, near the spread net and patiently waits for some mosquito or fly to get entangled in its trap. He pulls his trap between two adjacent trees or branches.
At the same time, he is guided not so much by sight or hearing as by touch, since the caught prey, trying to escape, produces a great concussion in the network, and the spider itself, being in ambush, touches with its legs or tentacles with several threads stretched to it from different ends. snare.
As soon as a concussion occurs, it is transmitted along these threads to the spider, like current through wires. Then the cross comes out of the ambush, approaches the victim, makes the last jump on it and kills it with its deadly, poisonous bite.
After that, he can behave differently, if he is hungry, he immediately eats the victim. Often a spider-cross simply entangles it with a web and leaves the victim in order to eat it another time. Sometimes he drags her away and eats in another place.
Interestingly, if an inedible animal, such as a poisonous wasp, got into his web, he himself releases it, breaking the network.

Tarantula

Stands out for its size spider tarantula(tarantula). In length, their torso reaches 5 cm, and together with hairy legs, elongated in length, they reach 18 cm. These giant tropical tarantulas usually do not weave webs, but there are one or two species that set up net traps. These nets usually carry loads up to 300 grams, and they catch not only insects, but also frogs, small lizards and birds. These spiders are very common in Australia and sometimes get into people's homes and gardens. They can reach more than 6 cm in length. A dog can die from their poisonous bite, but not a person. There is an opinion that their blood contains protection against poison and that when bitten by a tarantula, the place in which the bite was made must be rubbed with this crushed spider.
Spiders are very common all over the world and especially here in Russia. It is popularly believed that the spider should not be killed and that it brings mail to people.

Below you see photos of a spider living in the Moscow region.

Spider with a pattern

In the late autumn of 1794, the French went to war against the Dutch, but the Dutch, who, as you know, live below sea level, opened the floodgates and flooded all the fields and roads with water. The French could neither pass nor pass. They were about to turn back, but then their chief general was informed to wait: "The spider predicts frost." He waited, and in fact, after ten days the weather became clear and frosty, and the French, on ice, as if on a parquet, reached Amsterdam.

Belief in a web-based forecasting office is very old: Pliny wrote about it almost two thousand years ago.

Folk signs say this: if the spider sits in the center of the cobweb circle or began to weave immediately after the rain ended, and the network weaves a large one, on long threads, the weather will be good.

If forest spiders have laid new small nets on short threads, and house spiders have moved from the outer walls to the inner ones, expect bad weather, with rain and wind. If a lot of silvery cobwebs fly over the fields - again clear and warm days are ahead.

Some biologists think that perhaps the spider feels fluctuations in atmospheric pressure and, obeying instinct, behaves accordingly. The pressure rises, be clear weather - the spider weaves a trapping web. When the pressure drops before the rain, he does not waste his strength on a cobweb that is unnecessary in the rain. Having noticed these spider habits, one can supposedly predict the weather from them.

Others do not believe in such predictions. No one else, they say, has verified these spider predictions with precise scientific methods.

One way or another, but the almost universal belief in soothsayer spiders has served the little eight-legged creatures. Wherever this is believed, spiders are cherished for fear that the harm done to them will spoil the weather.

It is said that the spider generally brings good luck or good news. Players and those people who often have to tempt fate and who share this belief in the “spider of luck” simply revere spiders, having feelings of mystical fear and respect for them. "For luck" they wear spiders in different boxes or medallions, or replace these talismans with a tattoo depicting a spider.

About one gambler in Monte Carlo they say that he received expert advice on what color to bet on from his spider friend. He importantly sat in a box with a glazed lid. The box is half red, half black. The spider crawled on black or red, if you shake it, the player bet money on that color.

In Egypt, the custom is still alive in places, for good luck, to let a big spider ... newlyweds into bed.

Many musicians found grateful listeners in spiders. It is worth taking a few notes on the violin - and the spider is right there: sitting and listening. Many stories have been written about the love of spiders for music.

But undoubtedly, this love is very selfish: it is not the music itself that attracts spiders, but the resonant shaking of the web, and it seems to them, the spiders, that it is a fly that has fallen into the net and is shaking it.

Thieves and heroes, as legends and newspapers assure, spiders have saved more than once from the police and enemies.

These stories are mostly old: the spider cobwebed the entrance to the cave in which Mohammed hid from evil enemies, and they did not enter it, deciding that there was no one there, since the web at the entrance was not torn. Since then, the great sin of the Mohammedans is to kill the spider.

And even earlier, as if in the same way, the spider saved David from Saul. This legend is widely circulating around the world.

Until recently, an oral tradition lived in Bulgaria and England: the spider also saved Christ himself from Herod. (But Christians, alas, repay a spider for a good deed with black ingratitude when they assure, it is not known why, that forty sins will be forgiven to the one who kills the spider.) In Italy, St. Felix, in Japan, the hero Yoritomo, like Mahomet, was saved by a spider ...

But perhaps no nation has ever been rendered such an important service by a spider as it once was to the Scots.

Robert the Bruce, the hero of Scotland, in many bloody battles with the British suffered one setback after another: the Scottish rebels had too few forces (although the cause was right: they fought for freedom). Seven times in a row, says the legend, the British defeated him in battles. Wandering in the mountains, Robert the Bruce wandered into a cave. He was completely discouraged, all his hopes and strength were shattered. In the corner of the cave, a spider was weaving a web. Robert the Bruce, angry at everyone, tore it off. And in less than an hour, the spider set to work again in the same corner. Bruce again ruined all his work - he looks, and he weaves again, calmly and businesslike. Seven times Bruce destroyed what was made by the spider, but the spider with the same energy worked on the ruins of its web, weaving everything anew.

And then the hero was ashamed: the little "bug" is so stubborn and fearless in his deeds, and we, the people, lost heart from several defeats! Do not be that! Bruce came out of the cave, full of courage, gathered his people and in a new battle at Bannockburn in 1314 defeated the English.

how many spider Arctosa Fulvolineata Can you stay under water and not drown? To find out, Julien Pétillon from the University of Rennes (Université de Rennes) lowered the arthropods into the water, waited until they stopped showing signs of life, and pulled them out of the vessel "on land." However, a little later, the entomologist discovered that seemingly dead spiders began to come to their senses.

A. fulvolineata are known for being able to tolerate immersion in water fairly well. Therefore, Julien was not very surprised that it took almost a day to wait for the “death” of the spiders. Apparently, in order to conduct further research, the scientist decided to dry the unfortunate test subjects. What was his surprise when, one by one, the arthropods gradually returned to life. As if before that they were in a coma.

“We didn’t expect at all that spiders could fall into such a state,” Petillon explains.

As a result of further research, it turned out that some representatives A. fulvolineata calmly survive even a 40-hour stay in the water.

Julien and his colleagues explain what is happening like this: in the absence of oxygen, spiders switch their metabolism from aerobic to anaerobic (oxygen-free) mode.

On average, all individuals were able to survive without air for about 16 hours. Scientists believe that this is due to lifestyle A. fulvolineata(after all, their forest counterparts of the species Pardosa purbeckensis did not last even a part of this time).

“Many species of spiders live in places where from time to time they have to dive under water. In most cases of flooding, arthropods simply climb up the available plants, but we have never seen spiders manage to “endure” under water for so long,” Petillon says.

Of course, we are not talking about those arthropods that are able to drag air with them under water (in some it lingers on the shell, others weave special scuba nets).

The period of 16 hours may be due to the fact that in the salt marshes of northwestern France (in the area where A. fulvolineata) hot flashes rarely last more than eight hours.

And it is even more unlikely that the spiders will remain waiting for two such arrivals of large water.

There is an opinion that spiders have developed their ability to weave webs precisely for protection from the water element. Making a waterproof "door" for their homes, they could well wait out the floods or long rains. A. fulvolineata indirectly support this theory. They almost never create silk threads, and with their incredible endurance, this is not really necessary.

Read also about a creature that can distinguish smells under water.

The biggest threat to spiders is the spiders themselves. There are spiders that catch other spiders.

In difficult times, when food is scarce, it becomes difficult for spiders to resist eating someone from their family. The most famous spider in our house is the long-legged spider Pholcus phalangoides. He is the most dangerous enemy of spiders. In spring, this spider is the only one that lives in our homes. All other insects and spiders are exterminated by him during the winter. In the event of a hunger strike, they even kill their own offspring.

There are also spider killers in the Mimetidae and Ero families. Ero attacks the spider sharply, on one of the spider's legs. It then retreats and waits at a safe distance until the bitten spider dies. Then he comes back to suck every last drop out of the spider.

We humans have a bad habit of disturbing the life of the natural world for our own selfish purposes. In doing so, we are destroying a lot of spider habitats. When using insecticides in agriculture, entire settlements of insects and spiders are destroyed. A very large number of spiders are listed in the Red Book and are currently on the verge of extinction. It is now very rare to find tarantulas in South America because they have been caught and sold as pets.

Stop and think:

"Is it worth it to kill spiders just because of their repulsive appearance?"

The daily and annual cycle of spiders

Waltz with cricket

Then all the prey begins to be eaten at the same time. This simultaneous consumption of all captured prey is a sign of situational behavior due to irregular access to food and frequent hunger.