Goldie the spider was about to get smashed to bits, but I stepped in to save her life

By Edward A. Forbes

The Bulletin

“OMG, there is a huge spider on the storm door; kill it,” the females of the Forbes clan shrieked loudly and so shrilly that the paintings on the wall vibrated.

I quickly jumped in to save the life of my spider.

“He is not huge, and he is peacefully minding his web and own business. Leave him alone; he’s not going to attack or hurt anyone.”

The small spider located on the upper right-hand corner of the storm door was what we always called a writing spider because of the zig zag webbing in the center of his web.

My son and I had noticed his appearance several days before and hadn’t realized that we needed to notify the ladies of his presence.

A few days later, on my son’s next visit, he remarked “That spider has really grown; it’s twice the size it was a couple of days ago.”

I went out to check, and indeed, the spider was much larger and had relocated to the right of the door and up in the top corner of the sheltered front porch. The appearance of such rapid growth called for some investigation on my part, and I immediately called upon Google, Wikipedia, and other sources to ascertain what was happening with my spider.

My small writing spider was an Argiope aurantia or golden orb weaver and evidently a male.

The larger relocated writing spider was a female. It seems the males locate their web in the vicinity of a female in the hopes she will accept his advances, and they can make whoopie.

Unfortunately for him, she evidently watches a lot of the Ion channel programs about unhappy wives solving marital discord with violence. After consummating their union, the male has an irreversible seizure and dies or is bitten by his true love and dies. He is then eaten or bundled in a silk cocoon for a later snack. No attorneys are involved.

Our lovely female, two to three times the size of the former mate, is a busy homemaker.

She takes down her web and rebuilds daily. Later in the year as fall approaches, she will lay up to 1,000 eggs in a silk pouch suspended from her web, and she may have from one to four of these pouches.

 The eggs hatch in the late fall or winter months but don’t emerge until spring. The hatchlings usually number about 300.

I will leave it to your imagination as to what happened to the other 700. Those hatchlings must survive the predators, birds, insects, and so on.

I now have enough invested in my spider to believe that she deserves a name other than spider. Name selections range from Spidey, Orbit, Killer, and finally, Goldie. Goldie was my choice. This accompanied by the information that the average lifespan of a writing spider is one year, but there are exceptions.

 In temperate climates without hard frosts or freezes, they can live several years.

I check on Goldie daily and am hopeful that our climate and her southern-facing web location will translate into a longer lifespan. ”Go Goldie!”

(Email Edward Forbes at forbes1946@gmail.com or send comments to The Bulletin, P.O. Box 2426, Angleton, TX. 77516.)