The Curious Habits of Arachnids

The spider pictured here is about 3 inches long if you include leg span. Kinda big, a little creepy, highly fascinating. He lives at the edge of our carport. There's another spider, not quite as large, who lives off the back porch overhang.

For several days consecutively we have watched these two curious specimens and attempted to photograph them. They're rather mysterious, as we never see them in the daylight. Are spiders nocturnal? Doubt it. But they're smart enough to stay out of the 95 degree New Mexico sun, I suppose. Every evening at dusk we see them both spin out of their hiding places & steadily re-weave the webs they weave every night. I don't know if the spiders dismantle them or if the webs are damaged by birds or weather, but every evening they patch & mend & weave anew. A discipline of hope, don't you think? Inspiring. Sometimes we leave the back porch light on to draw more critters to the area so the back porch arachnid gets nice & fat.

Who knew that reading "Be Nice To Spiders" as a child would evolve into such respect for our eight-legged squatters? Almost makes me not want to tear down the carport. Almost.