I’ve written about “spider time” before and it is once again upon us.

Spiders are everywhere! They are outside and inside. Most are small this time of year having recently hatched, but they will grow fast.

This came to mind last week as I was mowing. There were webs of spiders everywhere in the grass. They were once called funnel web spiders; however, there is a funnel web spider in Australia that is deadly poisonous. In fact, it is considered to be the most dangerous spider in the world. Our funnel spiders are not. To avoid confusion in the name they are now called funnel weaver spiders, and they comprise one of the largest families of spiders in the world with almost 1,500 different kinds worldwide.

The web they make is not the sticky kind you find with other spiders. Small insects don’t get stuck on the sheet of webbing that funnels down into a place where the spider is hiding. Instead, when a small insect vibrates the web, the spider rushes out of the funnel to catch the insect. The bite of the funnel weaver spider, like that of any and all spiders, is toxic, and the insect is quickly paralyzed. There is only one species of funnel weaver, the “hobo spider”, whose bite is somewhat toxic to humans. Hobo spiders are found in the Pacific Northwest, and they do get into Wyoming and Colorado, not Nebraska, and besides, even their bite is not that serious.

Another name for the funnel weavers is “grass spider”. Our grass spiders are fairly small with the largest only about an inch long at maturity. Compare that to the giant house spider of Europe and Africa, which can be as large as five inches. The giant house spider has the distinction of being the largest of the funnel weavers as well as the fastest spider on earth!

Here at home, we have the domestic house spider that is only about half an inch in size and lives in our basements and garages making webs on windowsills and in corners. The fact that they survive in these places over the winter tells us that a lot of small insects live there as well!

Outside with the grass spiders are the wolf spiders.

They look and act a lot like the grass spiders, but they don’t make webs. Instead, they live in small burrows.

They will sit in the mouth of the burrow and wait for a passing insect or another smaller spider. They will then rush out and grab their victim, bite it, and then drag it back down the burrow. Wolf spiders can get fairly large, and they scare a lot of people. However, like the funnel weavers, they are harmless. Wolf spiders will carry their egg sacks around and when the eggs hatch the small spiderlings will ride along on the back of the mother.

Not everyone likes spiders, and some people have a deep fear of them (arachnophobia). Sadly, for those people this time of year is not a pleasant one because, well, it IS “spider time!”