Spiders are creepy looking, and the webs are frequent Halloween decorations. What’s a good haunted house without some spider webs and a big, hairy eight-legged creature menacing you from the darkest corner? But while spiders certainly can scare us, they also help us too. They are excellent pest control agents! Their webs trap flies and other insects on which the spiders subsist. Let’s get real about spiders.
First, those spooky webs we just mentioned: not all spiders spin webs! While all spiders are capable of producing silk, not all spider species use the silk to trap prey. Spider silk is incredibly strong, in fact, for its weight, it’s stronger than steel! The spiders that do spin webs have been doing so for 100 million years, and contrary to myth, the webs aren’t all round, symmetrical webs, they really do come in many shapes and sizes. What they do have in common is that they are all sticky. The stickiness is what aids in trapping prey.
How do the spiders who don’t spin webs find food? Some hunt their prey by hiding in flowers, waiting for prey, some dig deep burrows with a trap door to catch insects, some chase their prey and can run up to 2 miles per hour on those tiny legs! There are 47,000 species of spiders in the world and all together they eat between 400 and 800 tons of insects a year!.
Spiders get a bad rap as being aggressive. The truth is, spiders are as freaked out by us as we are of them. If it seems like the spider is rushing at you, the poor thing probably has poor eyesight and is just really trying to get away. Most spiders have poor vision and rely on other senses to navigate and find prey. Both dark, hidden places and light sources can have benefits for spiders. Dark, secluded spaces can be inviting to spiders hiding from predators, while light sources can help them to locate prey. Spiders in general, even black widows and brown recluse, won’t bite unless provoked.
Spiders eat insects like mosquitos and roaches, as well as moths and help to lessen the spread of diseases caused by those pests. They will also kill other spiders. But as beneficial as they can be, you do NOT want an infestation of spiders in your house. If you’ve got spiders, you probably have other insects which are providing a steady food supply for the spiders, so the spiders might be the least of your worries! If you’re seeing a lot of webs in your attic, basement or any where else in your house, call a pest control professional to assess the spider situation and help to figure out what other insects you’ve got that are providing food for them.