DEAR JOAN: I have an unusual spiderweb in my yard and haven’t found any information online on how to identify the spider. I am hoping you can give me some tips on how to find out, as I surely don’t want to be bitten by it. No, I haven’t seen it yet.
The web is horizontal and stretches across large stretches in my backyard, bush to bush. I appreciate any information you can share with me.
Barbara Neale, Walnut Creek
DEAR BARBARA: Although that’s an impressive display of web making, extending from plant to plant, shrub to shrub, it’s likely the work of just one overachieving arachnid.
There are five basic types of webs, which tell us what type of spider might be making it. In the Bay Area, we find orb, woolly, tangled, sheet and funnel webs.
Orb webs are the work of, you guessed it, orb weaver spiders. They make what most people consider the classic spider web — wheel shaped with intersecting lines. There are lots of orb spiders, all harmless to humans and beneficial in the garden as their webs catching unwanted pests.
The woolly web is sort of nondescript, although I’d say it looks like it was spun by a drunken orb weaver. It has an irregular and random pattern, is built horizontally and is called woolly because of the texture of the spider silk. Instead of being sticky, the silk is electrostatically-charged, which is what nabs its prey.
The most common woolly web builder is the cribellate orb weaver, which lacks venom so instead of killing prey with a bite, it coats the poor unfortunate insect with regurgitated digestive enzymes which turn the victim into soup. Oh, sorry, were you trying to eat breakfast?
Third on the list is the tangled web. It has no defined shape, but the webs are three dimensional and look like they was spun by a spider who said messy hair, don’t care. That said, they’re deceptively well constructed to lure unsuspecting insects. Common house spiders might spin these types of webs — and so do black widow spiders. The webs, however, tend to be built in cozy corners, not spread out across a garden, so no need to worry about that one.
Funnel webs are thick sheets of webbing that the spider uses to hide within, then rush out at prey. Most funnel spinning spiders are harmless grass spiders.
Sheet webs are rather ingenious traps that consist of several strands of web strung horizontally from one branch to another, above a hammock sort of web. An insect flies by, hits the horizontal lines and is knocked into the hammock, where it is doomed.
Sheet weavers are in the Linyphiidae family, which are smaller spiders. I think this is your architect.
The only spider in California that you need to worry about is the black widow, and even then, you don’t need to worry much. Black widows are very shy, and while being bitten by one wouldn’t be in my Top 10 of pleasant experiences, they can’t inject enough venom to kill a human. Smaller pets or people with severe health issues are the most at risk, but you’d have to work really hard to get bitten by one.
Contact Joan Morris at [email protected].
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