[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

At our house we’ve been trying to leave our spiders to themselves as much as possible. Sure we bang into a web once in a while walking between bushes, but it’s refreshingly nice to see them hanging in their webs, doing next-to-nothing, waiting for some annoying flying insect to blunder into them, at which point they leap into action. We relocate the long-legged ones inside our house when they get into a poor location with little chance of food or if we’re likely to accidentally step on them. Certain spots are reserved for them. Unlike bird-killing cats, they ask for nothing and provide a useful service, the perfect house guest.

LAIST 89.3 FM recently had Lisa Gonzalez, program manager of living invertebrates for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, talking about spiders on their Air Talk program which was interesting and informative, but unfortunately only 18 minutes long.

https://laist.com/shows/airtalk/the-air-quality-around-the-salton-sea-is-getting-worse-is-hope-in-sight-for-residents#getting-to-know-the-spiders-of-socal

Their blurb:

If you feel like you’ve been running into a lot of spiders recently, you’re not alone. Whether catching a glimpse of them in the corner of your eye or walking straight into a spider web, it’s almost like they’re everywhere at the moment. So what’s going on? After a healthy season of rain the past two years, Los Angeles is welcoming a more robust and flourishing community of our local, arachnid friends. But where are you most likely to run into them? From Jumping Spiders and Orb-Weavers to differentiating between Black and Brown Widows, we’re talking all things spiders this morning to help us get a sense of why we’re seeing so much spider activity this time of year. Joining us to talk about it is Lisa Gonzalez, program manager of living invertebrates for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.