The Frost Is a Coup de Grâce

As usual, we’ve been keeping tabs on our argiopes—our black-and-yellow garden spiders—as the season’s progressed. We’ve had them all summer—two on the corner, among the blades of a yucca, and one in the flowerbed near our front door.

Look, spider-watching really is fun! The orb-weavers stick around all season. You walk past an argiope web every day, and you can’t help but note things like, “oh, look, she’s got a grasshopper!” And you know when one of them has made an egg case, because she disappeared from her web for a whole day and has now returned to it, half as rotund as she was before. Then you find yourself peeking around the nearby vegetation, looking for that hidden egg sac. When you clean out that bed later on, you don’t want to inadvertently pitch that spent vegetation into the composter if it’s got her babies in it!

This past week, the argiope near our front door seems to have given up on her web-making. The winds and rain were simply too much; apparently, she threw in the towel and crept away.

She’s moving slowly; she’s getting skinny.

Over the weekend, she clung precariously to the bricks above our front door, which freaked out my nephew when he was visiting (we all had to walk right under her each time we went in and out of the house).

Do you suppose the argiope just said to herself, “Oh, what the heck! My web-spinning and egg-laying is done! Let’s go out and see some of this great big world that the grasshoppers are always telling me about (right before dinner).”

Nah—I know better. She hasn’t given up; quitting isn’t in a spider’s vocabulary. It’s survival; we’ve seen it plenty of times with argiopes. If one web location isn’t good—if it’s too windy, or gets smacked into too much, or doesn’t catch enough bugs—the argiope relocates. I’ll bet that’s what she was trying to do, bless her heart. And anyway, orb-weavers tend to have poor vision; she wasn’t “sight-seeing.”




The next day, we found her just standing, rather still, on the concrete steps leading up to our front door. (I hope she hadn’t fallen . . . I’m glad no one had squished her . . . some people just squish spiders as a matter of course . . .) So we picked her up and put her into the plants in one of our front planters. It’s pretty warm there. And so far, that’s where she’s stayed.

The embers of life go out so slowly with spiders. It’s her time.

I used to get rather sad when the freeze would come and, in a single, late October night, put an end to all the spiders, all the tender plants, all the bugs, all that vibrant summertime life. But now I see: The frost is a coup de grâce.

When it doesn’t come, cold-blooded life gradually grows too cold to continue, anyway. Spiders don’t have enough food, because the insects are dwindling; they can’t spin effective webs, because it’s cold and windy, they cannot move quickly anymore, and they’re beginning to starve. Without a decisive freeze, it can be a long, drawn-out death.




Think about it: All summer long, these insects and spiders have fought hard and survived. Our argiopes have netted and trussed prey, and feasted on it; they’ve scrambled away and hidden from garter snakes and praying mantises; they’ve mated; they’ve laid eggs. They’ve endured this summer’s drought, and they’ve put up with the indignity of being sprinkled with the garden hose.




The great majority of arthropods never make it to autumn; there are a million ways for a bug to expire. The ones that are left at this time of year are the survivors, the winners, the elders—as old as any of their kind ever get. In human terms, they are going to die of “natural causes”—of old age, of senescence, of systems breaking down.




The overnight freeze, when it comes, is a gift from nature that lets them die in their sleep.

I used to think it was rather cruel, how the freeze sneaks in during an autumn night and extinguishes all those amazing little sparks of life, but now I see it’s nature’s kindest way of saying—to the humblest of its creatures: Well done; come home.

Young Argiopes

Oh, what a joy! It's the next generation of argiope spiders in front of our house. Once again, the tomato plants are the habitat of choice. In this case, the tomatoes are "volunteers" from last year's grape tomatoes.

So it's kind of funny--the tomatoes are offspring from last year's, and the argiopes are no doubt the daughters of last year's argiope. (Remember her? We were pretty sure a praying mantis got her at the end of last season. I've written a number of posts on this loyal and interesting species--Argiope aurantia.)

There are two young argiopes that we've found (so far). Counting the outstretched legs, their bodies cover an area about the size of a quarter. They're still just kids, at this point!

Cute, huh?




You can really see the delicate beginnings of the pattern on the opisthosoma (a.k.a. the "abdomen"). And aren't her striped stockings cute? She'll wear those all her life, too.

And there's something visually poetic about the spiny little hairs on the legs of argiopes, and the hairlike trichomes on the tomato stalks.

Cool, huh?

(My "little friends" . . .)

Argiope Slayer

The arthropod world is a universal chomp, and yesterday--apparently--our argiope (Argiope aurantia) went down to a Chinese praying mantis (Tenodera sinensis). Apparently.

We didn't see it. But when Sue left for work yesterday morning, our lovely "Mrs. Argiope" was gone from her web, and this four-to-five-inch mantis was standing less than a foot away from where she used to hang out. There was a single black spider leg dangling in the web.

And the mantis was looking right up at Sue with its green eyes. Defiantly. Motionless.

Sue took some pictures.




. . . Well, it is getting late in the season. The cold evenings aren't good for any of the bugs, and when it finally frosts hard enough, all the argiopes expire then, collapse and drift into the leaves of the plants upon which they've built their season's webs.

So this year, it was a quick dispatch instead of the slowing of metabolism until there is nothing.

She did make at least three egg cases (that we know of) before she was dispatched.

As an interesting note, there had been another argiope, about one molt behind full adulthood, which had built a respectable web nearby, in the same clump of tomatoes. She has now appropriated the web built by the other argiope, which is bigger and better-placed for hunting. Yesterday, I noticed she'd caught a little wasp. But if she wants to make egg cases, she'd better get a move on.

And watch out for mantises!

Argiope aurantia and Egg Case

On the morning of September 13, when we were heading out the door to go to Kansas City to see the last stage of the Tour of Missouri, we noticed that "Mrs. Lady" (our pet name for the Argiope aurantia that has built her web by our front door) had just blown an egg case.

Woo-hoo! As you might recall, we've been tracking our argiope's development since well before she was born. See here for a picture of the egg case she almost certainly hatched out of.

And here is a picture of her (we're pretty sure it's the same one) when she had her web temporarily in our yuccas. (Including a nice view of the, um, posteriormost end of her opisthosoma.)

Anyway, I think it's beautiful to see the cycle of life continue. And argiopes, also known as black and yellow garden spiders, are gloriously big. And they always seem to gravitate toward the tomato plants--they guard them from hopping and flying pests like graceful, tiger-striped protectresses.

For a long time I was quite arachnophobic, but argiopes were one of the first spiders I felt warmly toward; when one or two take up residence in your garden, they stay there all summer and become like strange little friends, miniature pet tigers, pouncing on entrapped grasshoppers, giving them a little sedative to take the "edge" off, then wrapping them up like a burrito to eat later on.

This is the first time, I think, that we have caught an argiope so soon after she's created an egg case.

Her skinniness was almost shocking. And as she hobbled around and around the case, weaving the web structure that will keep it safe through the entire winter, her legs looked wobbly and clumsy. As with all female creatures, giving birth can't be easy on her system, either. She looked exhausted. She looked sore. But she still had to weave the support webbing before she could haul off and rest.




While I was taking pictures of her, she did pause for a few moments on a tomato leaf. I didn't notice it until I looked at the pictures later, but she's actually resting on her pedipalps, using them in addition to her wobbly legs, to support her bod.




Then she got back to work on the scaffolding that surrounds and supports the egg case. No, she wasn't moving very fast at all.





She went around and around.




. . . At this point, a week later, she's back in her lovely orb, catching bugs, and looking fine. Getting her strength back. Getting ready for her next egg case!

I think, like all her kind, she's hoping it will be a good long time yet before the deathly frosts come.

Peppers, and Mrs. Argiope 2009

Here are a few recent pictures to update you on a couple of things around the yard.

First, here's a few of the glocken peppers as they're maturing. I showed them to you last month. Now they're changing color! Pretty sweet, huh?

(Sweet . . . and spicy!)






And here's a picture of an argiope--apparently the only one we have--probably a descendant of the one we had last year, whose egg case I showed you back in April. This spider has been building her webs in a yucca. (I was pleased that this picture showed some of the velvety texture on her abdomen.)




By the way, I have to mention, with a certain degree of pride, that I suspect I'm displaying the only photograph of an argiope's arse on the entire Internet.

Hope for the Future

Hi! I'm trying to minimize my time spent posting this week, since I'm pretty busy with work. And that "Wurstjaegering" post was rather meaty, anyway. (Pun intended.) So today, like yesterday, I won't "say" a lot, but I will show you another lovely thing in our yard and tell you briefly how happy it makes us. First, here's the "thing."



Do you know what it is? Yes! You guessed it! It's an argiope egg case. Argiopes are those strikingly beautiful and large "black and yellow garden spiders" that build large, intricate orbs. Argiope aurantia is the species we're talking about here.

It's a long story that I won't get into in depth today, but we have come to know and love these creatures. Like the garter snakes, they are as welcome in our garden and yard as the flowers, and we feel blessed when we discover them on our property. Just because they're efficient predators (ahem, like us) doesn't mean they're not beautiful.

So last year, one of our argiopes lived at the front of our house, over the flower bed beneath the first-floor living room window. We watched her mature through some of her last molts. We also noticed when she was "visited" by a male argiope or two. Ooh-la-la.

Female argiopes--the ones that spin the webs, and basically the only ones you ever see--have to eat a lot to be so productive with their eggs. And I'm sure this one spewed more than one eggcase before the frosts closed the curtain on her, last October, but this is the only one we've found, and it's been quite visible all winter. Usually they position the egg cases under leaves. She "hid" this one just under the brick windowsill.

I hope you can see it in the picture, but she tethered it in place really nicely with her webbing. It's been hanging there securely all winter, even as her exoskeleton no doubt disarticulates and crumbles into the earth beneath the tangle of vinca vines.

Several years ago, when we lived in Columbia, an argiope had left a late-autumn egg case on our sliding back patio door, and while we were standing inside one day that winter, we watched a tufted titmouse swoop up abruptly to it and snatch it completely away, all in one swift fluttering motion. Can't blame the titmouse for wanting a nice omelette on a cold morning, but then, we were sorry about Mrs. Argiope's productivity.

You'll notice there's a dent on the egg case; that appeared only a few weeks ago, right after one of our recent warm spells. I suspect the eggs might have hatched and the spiderlings dispersed. Hooray! Happy birthday! . . . Meanwhile, I'll let the egg case be, just where it is, until I'm sure it's empty. . . . Isn't it pretty?