the death of the spider
our kitchen has been home, in the past, to several species of spider.
the whole house is full of what new zealanders call 'daddy longlegs' (Pholcus phalangioides, completely different from the north american 'daddy longlegs' or harvestmen, order Opiliones) - brownish to pale-yellow-green, spindly spiders that spin crazily when disturbed, whirling in their webs so quickly you can't actually see them. for a while, we had a big furry brown-black one with a red abdominal dimple (not a black widow or redback) in one of the lower cupboards, dining on ants (and welcome to them). the occasional poisonous white-tail (Lampona spp.) wanders through, but since the cat is fond of eating arthropods (which we encourage, especially in fly season) these usually get trapped under a glass and placed in the freezer. but in general, i prefer the spiders to whatever they're eating, so they're welcome to take up residence wherever they can make a decent living.
in early january, while my parents were visiting, a more unusual spider moved in. she was fat and sassy, with a dark brownish-gray abdomen about 1cm in diameter, and she quickly spun a beautiful big orb-web using a trailing houseplant and the lintel to the laundry-room door. suspended above the counter, just above eye-level but out of the general traffic pattern, she reigned over the kitchen for several weeks and caught her share of mosquitoes and ants. (this makes our kitchen sound like vermin central... the mosquitoes result from a most unfortunate lack of screens on new zealand windows; the ants are constant invaders in the suburb we live in.) my dad, when i wasn't looking, also fed her a honeybee he trapped in the kitchen, and kept her busy for several days.
in late january, she disappeared and her web began to decay, although the main strands still held. i hoped she had just moved on, though i also (unfairly, as it turned out) secretly suspected the cat.
one weekend in early february, she suddenly reappeared, in her old place in the center of her web, and i made a mental resolution to catch something for her later as a welcome-back present. but when i remembered later in the afternoon, i checked the web and found her absent once more... and curled on her back, legs neatly folded in, on the counter below.
though she had never seemed to mind close scrutiny in life, i took her to work to get a higher-powered look and was able to take a few photos down the microscope, of her still-bright eyes and jaunty bristles. the local museum identified her for me as Eriophora pustulosa (a most excellent species name), the 'common garden orbweb spider,' though they were at a loss to explain her preference for life in the kitchen. i can only hypothesize good hunting. whatever it was about that spot above the counter that struck her arachnid fancy, and led her to spend the final month of her life there, i am grateful. i liked seeing her suspended in the corner, imagining her watching the domestic goings-on, in at least quadruplicate, with as little understanding as we had for her first appearance, then disappearance, then reappearance and quiet death. i hope that, if there is a great web in the sky for good spiders, she can snack on the ghosts of the flies i have swatted after her departure.
