This week I wanted to talk about something that I mostly find annoying in the woods: cobwebs.
7 juillet 2016 17:18 Laisser vos pensées
This week I wanted to talk about something that I mostly find annoying in the woods: cobwebs.
I don’t have an issue with spiders. Some of them look kind of weird and I won’t pick those ones up unless I have to, but that for me is just a general “leave things in peace” rule. I’ve handled plenty of big spiders before; rose haired tarantulas are the sweetest; baboon tarantulas are rather aggressive; pink-toed tarantulas are small and fast and are not fun to catch. Big spiders definitely made all spiders less “insect-like” and more “cute-fuzzy-animal-like”.
That doesn’t fix cobwebs. Spider webs are one of the strongest materials in the world. I remember learning in high school biology courses about how there are goats that have been genetically modified to produce spider silk in their milk. You wouldn’t really consider that it would actually take a big clumsy human intentional thought and pressure to break a web, at least not until you hit the really strong ones with your hand, attempting to push them out of the way before they get caught on your eyelashes or over your nose or even in your mouth, and then actually hear the snap of the web. Some of them can take a surprising force to break. Keeping your hand at the level of your eye is something no longer reserved to The Phantom of the Opera when you’re out in the woods. I’m constantly having to remind myself as I hike along, and then again forgetting two seconds later when I look up at the tops of the trees, exposing myself once more to a face full of cobwebs.
In a block I was laying out a few days ago I had multiple giant clobs of cobwebs sticking to me before I realized that the spiders in the area were forming beautiful mesh globes with their webs in order to catch flies. The sun was casting rainbows across these globe webs, built amongst alders, and there tucked in the very center, was a spider, awaiting her prey. I attempted to catch some pictures of these exquisite designs, but apparently I am not completely savvy with my camera yet, and alas, have none (also why I am still not yet writing about helicopters and argos – still to come!) It’s amazing how tiny creatures, that often give people, in one outlook, an unreasonable fear, can creature such beautiful, and efficient structures…That hasn’t made me like getting their cobwebs in my face any more though!