Are ground spiders poisonous7/28/2023 ![]() I have a rule that spiders can live in the house as long as they stay on the perimeter. If you have spiders, then there are enough prey insects to keep them fed - all the more reason to keep spiders around! Spiders are hunting predators, and will keep your house free of any of the creepy-crawlies that breed quickly and take over the house. But on that note, if you are especially fearful of insects in the house, killing indoor spiders is a sure-fire way to have MORE insects! Luckily, this orb-weaver will never be found in your house. Some view spiders as just another insect (Actually, they’re arachnids!), and especially don’t appreciate seeing them in their house. Most of us have never given a thought to what a spider’s purpose is. Would you like to learn how to grow a food garden in an ecologically friendly way that keeps our wild friends safe? Check out my award-winning book, The Suburban Micro-Farm.Įducation is the primary source for getting over a fear of spiders. On a similar note, there’s only one venomous snake in my area - the northern copperhead, according to this field guide by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.Ĭan you name the venomous spiders and snakes in your area? Luckily neither of them look anything like the garden spider. Incidentally, there are only two dangerously venomous spiders in my area - the brown recluse and the black widow. When the adult has done the work to identify what poisonous spiders reside in the area, and can identify them easily, then running across a yellow and black garden spider is a really exciting thing, since no venomous spiders exist that look anything like it. The reason why we react with fear is because we can’t identify what the spider is, and we don’t know if it could hurt us or not. This change in attitude and instinct about spiders comes only with education. It’s important for adults to model this behavior for children, because this is when children learn to either have fear or cautionary wonder about the natural world. However, with a desire for nature connection, we can seek to transform that first reaction from one of fear to one of wonder. Many people have an aversion to spiders and fear seems to be the common first reaction upon seeing spiders. The garden spiders in sedum flowers, with unknowing moths fluttering above! I suppose they prefer gardens over grass, like many other living beings in the ecosystem!įirst we saw one or two of them in a patch of sedum flowers, but now their territory covers most of the front yard and has started to spread to the backyard. What a surprise for us then, when these spiders ( Argiope aurantia) joined our ecosystem at Tenth Acre Farm in Ohio, in the same year that we took out the grass and installed our front yard garden. Some people call it a ‘writing spider’ because it appears to be writing when it creates the zipper, or zigzag. We named them ‘zipper spiders’ for the zipper-like finish down the center of the web. ![]() Awestruck by their size and beauty, we didn’t know what they were, and assumed that they were a tropical wonder. ![]() The first time we saw these spiders was on our honeymoon trip to Hawaii. ![]() In doing so, you weaken the ecology, the web of life in your garden that reduces your workload. This means there’s no reason to kill or relocate these ladies away from the garden. Let’s get the good news out of the way: They are very beneficial to the garden and are NOT venomous to humans. Once you’ve seen one in the garden, you’re likely to have them for a long time! This orb-weaver’s body can grow to the size of the diameter of a quarter, or even a bit larger. What is their role in the ecosystem? Are they venomous? Read on to find out! The black and yellow garden spider is a large and bold specimen, and quite shocking to encounter in the garden.
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