Okay, okay, so not all of us agree about whether or not spiders are beautiful. I know that many of my friends and readers don’t find them nearly as beautiful as I do, but no one can argue with me about their importance to the environment, especially in our gardens. Spiders literally eat tons of insects, many of them pest species like mosquitoes and flies, each year! Can you imagine trying to go outside and enjoy your garden if the spiders were not there eating those insects? Your plants and flowers would be decimated and you would be covered in bites after even a short walk outdoors. Not my idea of a nice afternoon in the garden!

One of the most unique looking, if not necessarily beautiful (beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder) spiders that I have in my garden and yard is the arrow shaped micrathena spider (Micrathena sagittata). It’s a small, colorful spider with an interesting shape like an arrowhead. The females, which are the main ones we see (males are bland looking, very small, and reclusive), have a triangular shaped, yellow abdomen with three sets of red and black spikes. The largest spikes, on the back of the body, angle away from each other making the abdomen look like an arrowhead. The rest of the body tends to be a bright red, and the underside is black or dark green. These spiders are closely related to the spiny orb weaver (Gasteracantha cancriformis), the Mable orchard orb weaver (Leucauge argyrobapta), and the yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia), among others. All of these spiders spin intricate, wheel-like webs that have a central hole where the spider spends most of it’s time. The webs are made of sticky silk that is capable of catching small insects as they either fly or crawl through the area. The spider will run down to the insect and bite it with a toxin that will paralyze it and liquify the body contents. Then later it will draw the liquid out with specialized mouth parts. Fortunately, the amount of toxin in a bite is so small that it’s harmless to people.

Not only do the insects trapped in these spider’s webs feed the spiders themselves, but small birds like warblers and wrens, some reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals may steal some of the trapped insects for their own meals. These spiders rebuild their webs regularly and abandoned webs are used by hummingbirds, vireos, and other small birds as well as mice, to line their nests. The spiders themselves are also part of the food cycle and are preyed on by larger birds, reptiles, opossums, and some species of wasps. Arrow shaped micrathena spiders, also known as arrowhead spiders, are common in the eastern United States from Maine to Florida and as far west as Minnesota in the north and New Mexico in the south. They are also common throughout Mexico and Central America. These spiders like to live in open forests, gardens, yards, and parks. Being so small, unless you are looking for them, you many never even notice these spiders, but whenever you go out to enjoy your garden or yard, remember who it is that helps to keep you and your plants from being chewed up by bugs! Thank a spider!

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