webs world wide

Nature has many niches. A nitch is a piece of habitat. A place in which to live. Of all the animals on earth, insects fill the most. Niches that is. Of all the pesky ones, spiders annoy me in an odd way. They do not suck my blood or buzz around my eyes. I never gave them much thought until I heard the story of the spider in Middle Earth that wrapped Frodo Baggins in its lethal silk. Well the silk is not lethal, but when wrapped around a prisoner, the meat tenderizer the spider can inject might as well be lethal because it leaves the victim stunned and stored for consumption at the spider's pleasure. In Tolkien's classic tale, a spider plays a major setback in Frodo's quest to destroy an ominous ring he inherited from his uncle, Bilbo.
In the making of the film, LORD OF THE RINGS in New Zealand, the director/producer/writer, instructed animators to come up with prototypes for the spider-like creature. Submitted were cartoon types, odd characters, as seen in many animations. Peter Hanson rejected them all. "I want the real thing," he admonished. The artists were surprised. Their director was a brave confident man. But he screamed when a real spider ran across his desk. He climbed the walls when a real spider came upon his pantleg. But he was adamant. The horrible predator in the story must have the features of a real spider. Although measuring twenty by twenty feet on the big screen, and able to roll fly-sized Frodo into the silk, the spider has all the features of the real thing, animated of course in the film's most unique manner.
I am not sqeamish about spiders. I leave them in their niches. Most of the time. I am annoyed when I walk between the plants in my back yard and swinging webs stick on my face, across my eyelids and in my hair. What a nuisance! But since I am trespassing through their kitchen I wipe off the sticky silk with sisterly indulgence. When I find one inside my house I no longer hold to the adage: Live and Let Live. On my ceiling the aracnid becomes a greasy spot under a well aimed swat. On my wall it makes a dash to escape under the moulding undoubtedly to web another day. If one becomes beligerant I slide a piece of paper under it and carry it outdoors to find a more suitable niche.
Maybe I am unfair because I can intrude into so many niches but, then, that is what comes of being an arrogant Homo sapien in the vertebrate class one phylum above the spiders.
Naomi Sherer