Spiders are good guys!!! Sometimes they end up in the wrong place. Spiders are very good general predators of pest insects in and around the home landscape. Believe it or not spiders consume far more insects in the yard than do birds. Worldwide, spiders eat enough in-sects in one year to equal the weight of the entire human population.
Spiders will eat virtually any insect whether it be considered to be a pest or a beneficial in human terms. Among the pest insects, they will dine on aphids, armyworm, leafhoppers, flea-hoppers, leafminers and spider mites. They will attack the spruce budworm, pine sawfly, sor-ghum midge and the tobacco budworm. Spiders also enjoy caterpillars, thrips, plant bugs, cu-cumber beetles, grasshoppers, scarabs and flies.
Even where spiders do not kill and or eat all the pest insects in a given area, there are cer-tain pest species that flee an area where spiders are present. The aphid, leaf fly and leafhoppers are three species that flee when spiders are present.
About Spiders
There are over 35,000 species of spiders worldwide. Less than ten percent, 3,000 reside in North America. They range in size from a millimeter long to giant tarantulas of the Amazon, whose legs may span up to ten inches.
Most spiders, in temperate zones, only live for one year and usually die in the fall. The female may lay several egg masses in the fall before she dies and the eggs overwinter or the young hatch in a protected area in a building or under rocks to wait for spring.
Spiders belong to the Class Aarachnida, which are eight-legged arthropods that also in-clude mites, ticks, daddy longlegs and scorpions. They have eight eyes. They have a pair of sharp fangs that nab its victims and inject a powerful venom that quickly kills or paralyzes the victim.
Most spiders either trap their prey in silken webs or actively stalk and run their prey to the ground. The trapping spider lies in wait until a victim hits the silken net and is on it in a flash, injects it and wraps it with silken thread. Some of the most common spiders found in the home landscape include the Wolf Spider, Garden Spider, Crab Spider, Jumping Spider, and Funnel-Web Spider.
Where Do You Find Spiders? - You can find spiders anywhere you find in-sects: under mulch, on plants, in trees, in out buildings, under boards and in your house. There are many spiders living in wooded areas.
