The Casper Journal :: Casper's Community Newspaper

Sunrise: As I’m watering plants in the greenhouse, the fuzzy, black-with-white-spotted daring jumping spider (salticidae), has warmed up from the sunrise hitting the top of the greenhouse, and drops down from the ceiling onto the angelwing begonia.

Good! The begonia was showing signs of an infestation of mealy bugs. The spider and the begonia oughta get along nicely.

Back in the house, and stepping into the shower, I see a daddy longlegs spider (pholcidae) splayed out in its web, enjoying the water vapor up in the corner of the bathroom.

You know, I haven’t seen a single black widow spider (theridiidae) since these daddy longlegs showed up. And they do keep the roly-poly population under control.

Mid-morning: Back out in the yard and watering plants, I see a lynx spider (oxyopidae) skittering along its zip line from an iris bloom over to my baby amur maple tree. Whatever its prey is, I’m grateful that it’s protecting both the iris and the maple.

Adding some water to the garden pond, the elongated, stick-like form of a long-jawed orb weaver (tetragnathidae) busily is rebuilding its web over the surface of the water.

Hopefully, any mosquitoes that consider breeding in the pond will fly right into the web for the spider’s next meal.

Deadheading the pink geranium in the bushel-sized, terracotta turtle planter, I notice clusters of web containing hundreds of baby spiders. I just planted the geranium in the terracotta turtle three days ago; the spiders must have come with the plant.

Since the planter is next to my front door, I transfer the spiderlings to a shrub over by the driveway. Better there than having them running rampant in my entryway.

Birds, katydids, praying mantis and larger spiders will thin the bunch down to a dozen or so lucky survivors.

Weeding a few stray sprigs of cheat grass growing out of the straw mulch in the vegetable garden sends a few burrowing wolf spiders (lycosidae) scurrying to their holes in the soil. There won’t be many cutworms destroying my new transplants with these big guys patrolling my garden.

Early afternoon: At the Master Gardener office identifying bugs. A ground spider (gnaphosidae) is brought in because “it might be dangerous since it is brown.” Nope, it just wandered into the house by accident.

A daring jumping spider (salticidae) is in a baby food jar, floating in alcohol and dead to the world, because it’s black and hairy. What a shame.

Two barn funnel weavers (agelenidae) are in a zip-lock bag, found in a weekly rental unit. The good news is they’d be great predators for bedbugs.

A wolf spider (lycosidae) is in a canning jar, carrying an egg sac. In a couple days, this mom spider will be carrying all 200 wiggling kids on her back for a couple of weeks. The proud client takes the jar -- and mom spider -- home to watch the kids hatch out.

Let’s face it: despite the horrified attitudes expressed by many of us when we encounter these arachnids up close and personal, spiders are a significant part of everyone’s environment.

They earn their keep by being predators of many unwanted insects. Spiders are the good guys!

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