A Starving Artist

Reflections, Spiders

Yesterday morning I was enjoying my morning coffee on the deck when I noticed that an anonymous arachnidian artist had turned our deck railing into his/her art gallery. As the sun attempted to break through the fog the lighting made for lovely viewing of this artwork.

As I photographed the five webs woven between deck spindles the artist was nowhere to be seen.

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While I might view these as works of art, to their creators they are a means of survival – their “bread and butter” so to speak.

In the evening I decided to see if the webs had served their purpose. Were there any bugs caught in the webs? Would the “starving artist” eat tonight? I was surprised to see that only one web remained. Upon closer observation I noticed the artist, an “Itsy Bitsy” spider, not much bigger than a fruit fly, was moving in imperfect circles between two deck spindles. The evening lighting was such that the web was invisible, but I assumed that Itsy Bitsy was creating another web.

After searchng for answers as to what may have happened to the other four webs I realized that I may have been wrong on two accounts. According to this article  https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/spiders-recycling/ spiders sometimes eat their own webs. Perhaps that is what I witnessed in the evening, and if so this is not likely a starving artist.

Did you know that spiders eat their webs?

27 thoughts on “A Starving Artist”

  2. Hey Ruth, great post – l did know about spiders eating their own webs, to rekindle their protein levels expended whilst creating the webs in the first place. I don’t mind spiders in the house, but Suze hates it. We’ll not kill them, but trap them and then release them outside.

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    1. Wow! You are the first person I have come across that knew that fact. I have to side with Suze. Spiders belong outside! If I discover them inside their fate depends on my mood. If they are lucky they will get vacuumed up and then I will empty the vaccum canister outside.

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      1. For my business in 2008, l had to furnish a client with a 300 page document of the life and times almost of spiders and it covered all sorts of things, so l learned a lot during that time period 🙂

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  3. That was very interesting Ruth, and once again I learned something from reading this post – I never knew that spiders ate their webs. I am scared to death of spiders but when I am far enough away from the spider and its web, I am always fascinated by the intricacy of their creation.

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      1. No, I don’t like them outside either, but especially not in the house – I am very afraid of them. Centipedes too. I wish it were not so because you would not believe what I go through to try to kill them.

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  6. I love the beauty of a spider web, but I hate the feeling of walking into an unseen one. Very interesting that the spiders eat them webs. Thanks for sharing.

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  8. Interesting article. We have an inhabitant on our security camera. He/she glows in the dark from the camera light. Each night there is a beautiful new web and at the end of every shift the web is gathered up in Spidey’s arms but we didn’t know they ate them.

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    1. Thanks Michelle. When I saw these webs I was reminded of the table cloth that I was crocheting two years ago. While I worked on it my husband would say ” How is your web coming Charlotte?” LOL. Perhaps our love for crocheting gives us an appreciation for spider webs.

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