Treasures at Home

This afternoon, I decided I would go on an expedition to find insects in my own backyard: the JE courtyard. I thought the most logical place to start were the flower beds surrounding the courtyard. I looked in each bed systematically and found no signs of bug life. Maybe it was the time of day or maybe insects are scared of the renown of Jonathan Edwards, but I had no luck regardless. Eventually I grew weary. However, as I was leaving for lunch I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. It was a tiny spider on the gate! It had made itself an intricate web on the bottom part of the gate. Even though it was so small, the spider had a lot of energy and life to it. I sat there by the gate watching this spider, transfixed, for around twenty minutes.

It was a common house spider, or Parasteatoda tepidariorum. Though most people have seen one of these spiders in their garage or attic and haven't thought twice about it; they are quite interesting to observe and beautiful in their own intricate way. Parasteatoda tepidariorum are synanthropic which means they benefit from and live near humans and the artificial habitats humans create. This spider was in the process of catching a minuscule fly in its web, injecting it with it's paralyzing neurotoxins, and wrapping it up to prepare for a feast. This spider will need to have a lot of energy soon since she has many babies coming- the brown blob above the spider in the picture is an egg sac.  Each egg sac can contain up to 400 eggs! It is amazing what one can find in their own backyard.