Wildlife Signs Woven on the Winter Landscape
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When it comes to seasons, winter often gets a bad rap. Summer seems to get all the attention, with its longer, lazy, and warmer days. Autumn is a time to watch the beautiful colors of the leaves as they change, as well as enjoy the bounty of the harvest. Spring is a time of colorful wildflowers and much of its allure can be seen as a rebuke of winter. The images of rebirth and new growth are directly attributed to surviving the starkness and coldness of winter.
But we find peace in the quiet and solitude of the naked forests of winter. The crisp mornings, adorned with frost on the landscape, excite the senses in ways that the other seasons just cannot. The shortened days bring a sense of gratitude for what can be accomplished in the abbreviated daylight of winter. And, as we have spoken of in previous posts, there is an ability to see and hear more without the distractions of butterflies flitting, leaves blowing in the breeze, insects calling, and watching our step in places we know copperheads, cottonmouths and rattlesnakes are apt to be napping the day away.
While it is true that animal activity is much less during the colder months of the year, signs of the inhabitants of the woodlands of Harmony Hill abound if you slow down and pay attention. Sure, there are tracks that show the well-traveled trails of White-tailed Deer, Coyote, Wild Turkey, and even Beaver. A look at the snags we encounter will most certainly show us that Downy Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Red-headed Woodpeckers, and Pileated Woodpeckers are still foraging and excavating cavities. There are other signs that we see on our walks, some that others may walk past and not notice. Today, let’s look at clear signs we saw while checking out an area of the forest.
The morning sun was bright and clear as it tickled the edge of an opening, the shadows of the pine needles danced on the broom sedge and blackberry briers. The color brown was well represented, as all shades from chocolate to sandstone were seen in a short stride. In those gradients of khaki and pecan, a nearly perfectly round shape caught our eye. Exquisitely camouflaged in the vegetation was a sign of a different kind. Well-hidden from our view, as well as the attention of potential predators, was evidence of a species whose adults are absent from the cold winter days at Harmony Hill. But the next generation sits, waiting for the right conditions to come along. This round form, roughly the size of a ping pong ball, is the egg case of the Black-and-Gold Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia). And just as a footprint in the soils along the creek show us deer have recently been there, this egg case was a sure sign of this species of beautiful spider.
Most of us have encountered these spiders during our time outside. They are a common species and, even if you don’t see the spider in the summer or fall, their webs are a thing of natural wonder and splendor. Belonging to a group of spiders known as Orb Weavers, they weave impressively large wheel-like webs. (More on orb webs and orb weavers in a future installment!)
Sitting in the middle of their large, round webs in broad daylight, these big spiders sit with their legs paired up. Two legs sit high and to the left, two legs sit high and to the right. Two legs sit low and off to the left, two legs sit low and off to the right. And the center of the web sports a zigzag pattern that looks as though the spider doodled a zipper where it perches. Some people even call spiders in this genus “Writing Spiders” or “Etching Spiders”, because it looks like they practice writing or etching in their webs. There is even an old superstition that, should you ever see your name written in the spider’s web, your number would soon be up!
But they aren’t really writing or doodling in their webs. What is all that zigzagging about, then? That bit of structural architecture in the web is called “stabilimentum” and there are several thoughts as to what it does.
It may serve as a visual cue for large animals, like birds and mammals, to see the web and avoid it. By deterring birds from flying through their webs or keeping deer from walking in the middle, the spiders are able to keep that insect catching web intact and not have to rebuild immediately after completion.
It may serve as a visual cue to attract insects, drawing the very prey they seek to catch even closer to the sticky threads.
It may serve as a way to increase structural integrity and strength, while also increasing vibrations the spiders feel when an insect becomes trapped.
As you know, when it comes to nature, there is seldom just one reason. When something serves multiple positive purposes, nature rewards it and that attribute is then passed along. It is likely stabilimentum does all this and perhaps more!
Either way, when one of the Argiope spider webs is encountered, it is difficult to mistake. But that web is long gone from Harmony Hill by this time in the winter. How do we know who left this egg sac?
Female Black-and-Gold Garden Spiders, also called Black-and-Yellow Garden Spiders, spin these spheres of silk as a place to hold their eggs and protect them after they die. Other Argiope spider egg cases may be large and impressive, but at Harmony Hill, only the Black-and-Gold Garden Spider egg sac is this shape and size.
Want to see another species we have here as a comparison? Well, thanks to Mother Nature, we can do just that!
Stuck in the middle of some twigs and vegetative debris, we saw a weirdly shaped object hanging there. Looking every bit like the nucleus of a cell that exploded or an amoeba on steroids, the egg case of the Black-and-Silver Garden Spider (Argiope argentata) is completely different from its golden cousin.
Just as common here, the Black-and-Silver Garden Spider can be found in similar habitat as the Black-and-Gold Garden Spider. They even spin extremely similar webs, stabilimentum and all! But when it comes time to lay eggs and spin a protective case, instinct kicks in and they spin an amorphous take on a polygon instead of a perfect golf ball.
Adult spiders of both species look similar, but the silver and gold accents on each area provide a definitive way to identify them in the field. Their species names even help with the identifications, as aurantia means covered (or inlayed) with gold and argentata means silvery!
The genus name of Argiope is a little more complicated, with its roots in Greek mythology. Argiope was a nymph and the mother of poet and singer, Thamyris. Her name translates to “Silvery Face” or “With Bright Silver Face” and that silver face can be seen on spiders of this genus, if you use a lot of imagination.
So, our Black-and-Gold Garden Spider’s scientific name can be translated as “with a silver face and covered with gold”, while our Black-and-Silver Garden Spider’s scientific name can be translated as “with a silver face silver”.
Finally, there are many beliefs and even superstitions related to these spiders. Some old southerners believe that, should you ever find your name written in the web of one of these spiders, your number will soon be up.
Going back much farther on the land now known as Harmony Hill, there is a Native American belief in the female deity Old Woman Who Never Dies. She was often depicted in iconography as an Argiope Spider, appearing on gorgets and drawings with the diagnostic paired leg posture. Of the many things Old Woman Who Never Dies was responsible for, she wove the Milky Way across the sky, and it served as a bridge for souls to cross over from this world to the above world. In fact, when the Milky Way dips to its lowest point in the sky each year, that is when all the souls who passed the previous year could walk to the edge of this world and cross the bridge that Old Woman Who Never Dies spun to the above world. (This is, of course, a very simplified version of that belief.)
Indeed, not only were these lovely spiders not feared by people here long before us, they were part of a revered and critical transition for souls. Consider that next time you see one of these massive orb weaving spiders!