Last night we discovered this beauty in our garden. She is about the size of a quarter and her web takes up half the vertical plane of my dining patio. Gary Bogue tells me it is a marbled orbweaver, (Araneous Marmoreus) one of the beautiful harmless garden spiders who build spiral webs. I am used to discovering some kind of orb weaver in the garden in the fall, but have never seen anything like this.
When we found the web it was damaged and we wondered if she’d be back. Last night as we watched she crawled into the middle and carefully ate the silk from yesterdays spinning. After resting a little she started on her amazing new web. The Entomology page at Ohio State tells me that she rebuilds her web every night! She cleverly digests the protein rich silk of yesterdays weaving to fuel her next endeavor. Orb weavers have a single signal thread which runs through the middle of their work and tells them if prey has been caught. Unlike other unimaginative spiders who wait in the center, the marbled orbweaver waits in a silken hole at the edge of the signal thread in case something is taken. Adults are so big they use a leaf or two combined with silk to make their holes.
It got me thinking about the industry required to rebuild your entire home and your way to make a living every single night. Beavers and spiders have a lot in common it seems, they both construct their worlds themselves, they consume their building materials, and they do the bulk of their work while we humans are asleep. What if a beaver had to rebuild his dam and lodge night after night? What if, like the spider, the beaver had to work alone?
Often I encounter the argument about instinct versus learning when trying to understand what beavers do. When one looks at those careful weavings and flawless concentric pattern one can only credit remarkable instinct. It’s not like spiders stay with their parents for a year perfecting their techniques. Still, spiders must get better as they work. The web of a first ever orbweaver must not be as skilled or the location as perfectly chosen as an established weaver.
Beavers, on the other hand, get a year or two to learn from their parents, and we can see it happening right before our very eyes. Last night, I witnessed the first EVER placement of a stick on the dam by one of our three kits. Not exactly a stellar placement, and I have certainly seen Dad move things after earlier generations have placed them, but it was a brave debut. Beavers do have instinct, but they have to train it over years of practice to teach them about the terrain, the materials and little tricks of the trade.
All of which the Orbweaver must cope with on her own. Go outside and look in your garden tonight. You might be surprised at what you find.
