From an October walk after an Anishinaabe-gichigami fog
Colorful leaves crinkle underfoot on woodland paths. Crows delight in the great buffeting of crisp winds. Bare-limbed trees etch dark silhouettes toward the rising moon in a twilit sky.
It's easy to see why October's magic lends itself to fun and ghostly tales and celebrations. The time of year now celebrated as Halloween draws on much older Celtic tribal traditions in Europe, of course, ones that celebrated the cycles of death and rebirth, the ending of one year and the beginning of the next, a time when spirits were thought to be particularly near. Some of the more fun-loving ones evidently delighted, like the fairies, in playing pranks on we humans.
Magic. Spirits. Fairies. Fun-loving mischief. October lends itself to these. But did you ever wonder: for Halloween, why such an emphasis on, well, spiders?
Some find spiders creepy.
Okay. Maybe that's part of the connection.
But there is more.
A couple weeks ago I went for a morning's walk through the woods and wildwood meadows around my home. A heavy fog from Anishinaabe-gichigami (Lake Superior) had rolled into these highlands. Nearly every tree and bush was graced by elegant webs beaded with the dew and fog. The beauty all around was astounding. And fleeting. That evening it was as if the webs had never been, making me all the more thankful I'd taken the time, and all my camera's battery charge, to try and get a bit of that beauty on virtual film (see video above).
Since that day, I've had some questions. With winter just around the corner, why were there so many spider webs? Isn't it time for them to find that cozy, warm winter hearth and snuggle close.
It turns out, fall is the time of year when those young spiders who spent all summer growing up are now adults. This is when many start to spin their adult webs.
It's also the time of year many spiders reproduce. Various sources say people may think there are more spiders out and about, but the same number are there as have been all summer. In the fall, though, many males are on the move, searching for that special mate.
Other sources say spring and fall are the seasons in which many baby spiders hatch, and fall is the season for this in particular.
This still seems strange to me as winter looms and spiders don't seem all that well built to endure frigid temps. However, evidently there are a number of ways spider species survive our harsh northern winters. Many who are adults may stay warm under leaf litter, in bark crevices, or even in the air space between the ground and the bottom layer of snow.
All spiders, however, need to go through a "hardening" process to withstand the cold. As temperatures start to decrease in the fall, spiders' bodies start to produce antifreeze compounds -- these can't be produced rapidly. A spider thrown out in the snow in the middle of winter won't likely survive as it doesn't have the time to develop the necessary antifreeze to do so.
A number of spiders who grow into adults by autumn mate during that time. The females lay eggs then die, their young overwintering as eggs or, as some reports explain, hatching into spiderlings yet surviving the winter by remaining in their egg sacs. One lifecycle ends in the autumn, while the young survive the winter, cuddled in egg sacs, ready to carry on the species' cycle come the following spring.
Other spiders survive to watch over their young. I've observed cellar spider mothers stand watch over their babies. I've read in various places about how wolf spider mothers carry around their hundred or so offspring until they mature enough to be on their own.
Some spider mothers take guarding their egg sac so seriously they will do so unto death, according to Larry Weber's Spiders of the North Woods.
When I take spiders out of our home to another more suitable shelter, there's a particular (and admittedly weird) bond I feel with the mothers -- their genetics code them for protective nurturing too.
When the babies mature enough, they are ready to balloon or kite away, casting a wisp of web into the air hoping it'll catch a breeze, whisking them away where they will establish a home territory. This new home may only be a foot away, sometimes much more.
Here in the North much of this ballooning for spiders of all ages happens in the autumn. If you've gone walking in the fall and get those wispy webs across your face, you may have walked through just such an event. At a neighbor's memorial ceremony in the fall a couple years ago, I remember watching a young spiderling on the edge of my chair arm standing on tippy-toe, reaching, straining upward each time it felt the faint hint of a breeze, seeming to exude an eager yearning to begin that journey into adulthood.
Spiders webs are fascinating. In my video above, most of the webs appear to be orb webs (the classic circular webs). Scientists have found certain spiders apparently weave flower designs into their webs, visible only under UV light. Some spiders, such as male funnel spiders, will live for a while in their funnel-shaped webs with their chosen mate even before mating season.
Other spiders use their web as a signalling device: if another spider comes visiting in a friendly manner, that spider will pluck at one of the non-sticky strands like we would knock at a friend's door. The resident spider makes their way along the other non-sticky strands to investigate. If welcome, the visitor is "let in." This is especially true for male Cobweb Weavers who go courting a female. Hackledmesh Weaver males drum on the webs of females they are interested in. Orbweaver males, according to Weber "use a series of web vibrations" when courting a female on her web so as not to be confused as prey.
Interestingly, the courtship between some spiders involves the male bringing a gift to the female. Weber tells us male Nursery Web spiders bring their chosen mate a fly. Women prefer flowers. Female spiders flies. Yet the similarities -- the act of giving a gift to woo a female -- are striking.
Finally, spider webs are both highly elastic and, for their weight, incredibly strong in terms of their tensile strength. And some spiders re-use the material -- when a new web needs to be made, the old one is eaten and the material remade into new webbing. How awesome is that? The ending of one makes for the beginning of the other -- and all from the same source.
Spiders may be just creepy crawlies to some, good only for giving someone the heebie-jeebies. But I think there's more to their inclusion with Halloween festivities than that. Quite simply, fall seems to be a time of year when spiders are very active, working on their own understandings of the cycle of death and rebirth, readying for the end of one cycle and preparing for the next.
Read more:
"Seeing spiders in your home? ..." Jordan Mendoza, USA Today
Spiders of the North Woods. Larry Weber, North Woods Naturalist Series
"Spider silk is a wonder of nature..." Michelle Oyen, Phys.org
"What Happens to Spiders in the Winter?" -- Amanda Magnus, Wisconsin Public Radio
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