This spider has a neat trick. It builds a typical orb web, but then it gets behind it and draws it back, like a slingshot…and when it hears a bug buzzing by, it releases it to spring forward and entangle it’s prey.

It can hear mosquitos and are triggered when on buzzes within range.

As for the web kinematics, Han and Blackledge determined that they can accelerate up to 504 m/s2, reaching speeds as high as 1 m/s, and hence can catch mosquitos in 38 milliseconds or less. Even the speediest mosquitoes might struggle to outrun that.

I haven’t seen any, but their range is basically holarctic — I would like to encourage them to move in around my house.

Argiope are epic spiders — they’re big, spectacularly colorful, voracious, and if you witness them, you’d be impressed at how quickly they can trap and kill their prey. But now we learn they also use sex appeal to capture dinner.

Predators and prey have direct interactions that influence their short-term behaviors, including resource allocation and strategies for moving through habitats. However, the presently observed behaviors are the products of coevolutionary interactions, posited to be a history of measures and countermeasures between the predator and prey. We found that Argiope (orb-weaver) spiders in the continental USA appear to use a pheromone lure that mimics the mating pheromone of the day-flying Hemileuca moth (buck moth) to entice male moths into their webs. We found evidence that different phylogenetic groups of Hemileuca moths respond to the Argiope pheromone lure with a broad range of responses, ranging from indifferent to acutely strongly attracted, suggesting a coevolutionary history of predator–prey countermeasures. One of these countermeasures may be the potential evolution of moth developmental timing (adult emergence) to avoid Argiope predation in areas where the ranges of the moths and spiders overlap.

I’ve seen fields filled with tens of thousands of Argiope, with a web every few steps. Oddly, I didn’t see any moths nearby, even though this should have been a giant invitation to an orgy. No moths, period. I wonder why?

You know what that means: I am welcoming all the spiders to come in from the cold and find a cozy place to stay in my house, like this Pholcus in my shower.

I stepped out of my house and started walking to work, when I noticed a dot moving out of the corner of my eye. There was a tiny spider dangling from my eyebrow! This is a bit surprising, since it’s a bit windy and cool here, but maybe they were desperate for shelter. I walked all the way from my house to the lab with a tiny spider on a silken thread hanging from my hand — I might have looked a bit odd. But I made it all the way and snapped their picture.

Isn’t that an adorable little orb-weaver? Now I’m not sure what to do with them — the outside is a bit inhospitable. I might have to adopt them and raise them in the lab.

Every year, around this time, as the weather gets colder, we get an influx of mice moving into our house to find refuge. Our cat is useless — she makes a lot of noise, usually in the middle of the night, but she can never deliver the coup de grace.

It seems I already have a potential solution at hand.

Warning: the videos below show mice meeting a horrible end in the webs of black widows.

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Remember, pretty does not mean it doesn’t have a savage bite.

Today was the day I was going to try breeding a new generation of black widows. I gently introduced some males to some females, but then chickened out. No way were these males ready for the overwhelming majesty of a fully grown female.

That immensity is the female, on the left. The little guy on the right is a male, who I think is bit young for this exercise. He’s game, though, scurried right up to female and made a few tentative taps. It’s a bit like watching a mosquito getting the hots for a passing zeppelin.

I think I’ll have to tank up the males for a few more weeks.