…And this one’s alive!

All signs seem to be pointing toward a very good year for spiders!  Hardly had I finished my first post of the new year yesterday, having carefully arranged the tiny victim of a sad, aquatic accident on a leaf for a belated tribute to a valued pest-hunter, when a new one volunteered during the night to be the next in line.  When I went into the kitchen to make tea for CD and coffee for myself, I was happily surprised to find a larger, much darker spider in the sink, trying in vain to climb the slippery walls.  Eager to have a live subject again (quite rare here in winter), I constructed a temporary viewing chamber with a screw-top lid from a mayonnaise jar, to the inside of which I affixed a circle of close-to-neutral-gray paper, and a small piece of picture-frame glass, and held the two together with a strong rubber band.  Next came my trusty little Pentax on its tiny GorillaPod and the remote release.  I spent the next hour on my knees & elbows on the living room floor, with my faithful Limo watching anxiously from very close by, quite confused and wondering why he wasn’t allowed to come much closer for a romp and a snuggle, since I was right at his level for a change.  I drew the lacy curtain across the south window to diffuse some of the slanting sunlight and had a grand time.  Then I went online to a few favorite websites to identify it, and discovered that I’d been working with a lovely example of Tegenaria domestica, commonly named the barn funnel-weaver or, not very imaginatively and rather redundantly, the domestic house spider, a member of the genus Agelenidae.  Rest assured that I released it again immediately, unharmed.  These close-ups make me really happy that I haven’t entered this world as a small insect!

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who don’t care that much for up-close and personal photos of spiders, please don’t despair, but check back from time to time–I promise that many gentler folk will be making appearances here as well.