It's a little known fact that all of North America's spiders originated in the state of Georgia. Nine hundred forty-two million different species of araneaids evolved in Georgia and spread throughout the continent over a span of, well, a long time. Arachnologists from all over the world come to Georgia to study the teeming spider populations remaining.
The best way to study spiders is to simply buy a house in the thick North Georgia woods. Each new day will bring one close to roughly seven thousand spiders. The spider enthusiast will want to rise early to greet the larger species, like the Reticulated Popping Spider who lies still like carpet fuzz then "pops up," landing all eight spidery legs and fangs on the approaching bare foot. The Southern Sink Scurrier can be seen under full light, but is much more exciting when viewed in the shadows as one attempts to collect water for coffee.
In fact, it's recommended that most spiders be sought out in the dark by reaching for light switches, doorknobs, liquor flasks, and the like. For instance, slipping on a pair of shoes is my favorite way of meeting a variety of fascinating spiders. Visiting the bathroom in the middle of the night is sure to reward one with a sighting of the Roughbellied Farmhand, so named because city folk often think it is the size of a farm worker's hand. However, spiders are rarely as big as people think they are. Except for the spiders found in bedclothes, that is.
If you live in a comparatively nontoxic household, you are likely to be appreciated by the Red-eyed Bouncer. A large and pugnacious spider, the Bouncer will stand firm before your threshold to remind you what a dangerous world you are walking into if you should open that front door. House spiders are a loyal and caring group of venom-injecting, organ-sucking arachnids, and they want their people to be safe. When you open that door anyway, the little spiders that drop into your hair and onto your shoulders are only trying to protect you. The most protective of all are the spiders of the genus Oshit, which is Latin for "beast that blocks door with six-foot-diameter web."
A time-honored method of attracting spiders in Georgia is leaving one's truck parked too long. In a matter of hours, an amateur naturalist can have web specimens across the tailgate and over the side mirrors. Give the experiment a full day and millions of spider eggs will be glued to chrome and paint, poised to burst forth with billons of cute, tiny spider legs just a-skittering and a-scampering. The spider moms' brazenly launched silk trails from trees to truck will collect droplets from the wet, stagnant air that chokes the Georgia summer and present them to you as gorgeously glistening gems just before you collapse from the heat.
I'm sure I don't need to point out that a large number of native Georgians are spider-lovers who have graciously provided at least one immoveable vehicular habitat right in their front yards. I do need to mention, however, that these habitats are very fragile and thus not open to the public. It is recommended that you folks not from around here avoid a potentially embarrassing encounter with a twelve gauge and just move along.
A real spider enthusiast will want to explore the woods, where the truly captivating spiders live. Should the amateur naturalist forget to encase herself in a shiny rubber cat suit before hiking, she chances meeting a spider relative, the chigger, up close and very, very personal. It is said that the electromagnetic energy emitted from a recording video camera combined with the shiny cat suit is an especially powerful chigger deterrent. I cannot comment on the scientific proof of this technique, but, anecdotally, it is quite effective.
Occasionally, one will experience a spider behavior unique to the suburban-country ecotone. While it is still an area of some debate among arachnologists, it appears that disparate species will actually cooperate to bring down large prey. For example, a human walking in the woods will inevitably put his face through a spider web. As the victim flails, he soon finds another web wrapped around a hand, then the other hand, then a leg, and so on until he is entangled and then impaled by the greenbrier beneath the spiders' webs. This cunning behavior has been caught on film in the documentary Invasion of the Starlet-Stalking Spiders from Mars.
One Georgia spider is capable of bringing down large prey with no help from anyone, thank you very much. The Deer-Devouring Mustard Spider is a huge, yellow, burrowing predator that springs from its hole and latches onto the muzzle of a grazing deer or other ungulate. It eats its way through the ear canal to the deer's brain, killing the animal. Then it consumes the entire deer in a matter of days. Ha, ha, I'm kidding. Those spiders are actually a tan color.
The Georgia winter is a relatively non-productive time for spider viewing. During all three weeks, the spider's normal territory (every square inch of all solid materials and the air between them) is conspicuously deserted. Spider enthusiasts are advised to travel deep into the sweltering, pestiferous Ecuadorian Amazon during the winter. Alternately, one can travel to Florida.
If I have piqued your interest in learning more about our spider friends, please consider a visit to the woods of the Georgia Piedmont. Y'all can even stay at my house, and I'll put you up on the sleeping porch, where we used to keep the relatives with tuberculosis. You may not sleep for all of the excitement of seeing so many spider species in one place, though.
But don't wear earplugs to dampen the volume of the calling frogs in order to concentrate on spider viewing. You will need sensitive ears to hear the opossum climbing the porch railing to claim your bed. Don't worry; I'll give you a stick with baloney tied on the end to lure the lumbering critter away from the house. If the ants eat the baloney first, well, you may have to give up your bed. Don't poke the opossum with the stick. (You don't want to know why.) Oh, and don't forget to shake your shoes.
