ARACHNIDS GO WILD IN LAKE BALBOA PARK.Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer The elaborate web shrouding the bushes along Bull Creek Bull Creek can refer to the following locations:
After a busy summer of feeding on aquatic flies, the species known as the long-jawed spider is in abundance as it reaches adulthood in the fall, and the intricate, sticky webs drape drape v. To cover, dress, or hang with or as if with cloth in loose folds. n. A cloth arranged over a patient's body during an examination or treatment or during surgery, designed to provide a sterile field around the area. shrubs and trees along waterways, in yards and in cool, moist areas around Southern California, said Brent Karner, zoo insect coordinator at the county's Natural History Museum. The webs can be found along creeks and rivers throughout Southern California, but the thick webs that cocoon cocoon: see pupa. the trees along Bull Creek have created the image that stunned Karner when he caught his first glimpse. ``I'd never seen anything quite like it,'' he said. ``Their population gets so big in some years, they just take over.'' As the name indicates, the long-jawed spider has a lengthy fang Fang Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Cameroon, mainland Equatorial Guinea, and northern Gabon. The Fang number about 3.6 million. Under colonial rule they engaged in ivory trading and after World War I in cacao farming. section on top of a long, narrow body. The arachnid arachnid (ərăk`nĭd), mainly terrestrial arthropod of the class Arachnida, including the spider, scorpion, mite and tick, harvestman (daddy longlegs), and a few minor groups. is actually quite clumsy when it comes to biting people, though it is a very capable eater of midges midges see ceratopogonidae and culicoides. and flies. ``People shouldn't be freaked out by it,'' Karner said. ``It's not dangerous.'' The long-jawed spiders are happily feeding now, but their season ends in the winter and their webs will soon be gone. Also common at this time of the year are the fairly harmless orb weavers, half-dollar-size spiders that spin large concentric webs. The menacing black widow spiders black widow spider poisonous spider; consumes her mate after mating. [Zoology: NCE, 308] See : Deadliness are found year-round in wood piles, meter boxes and other undisturbed areas. The potentially dangerous brown recluse spider brown recluse spider or violin spider, poisonous nocturnal spider, Loxoceles reclusa, most common in the SE and S central United States. Adults are 3-8 in. is not found in urban Los Angeles, Karner said. Back at Lake Balboa, Ken Novak, Parks and Recreation senior maintenance supervisor, said the elaborate webs are fairly common along Bull Creek because of the plentiful food and the more remote locale. ``It's never presented as a problem,'' Novak said. ``We just let nature do its thing.'' Kerry Cavanaugh, (818) 713-3746 kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) This is one of the many long-jawed spiders that have transformed an area near Bull Creek into a webbed wonderland. (2) The elaborate webs of long-jawed spiders - which feed on midges and flies, not humans - now veil a part of the park. Evan Yee/Staff Photographer |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion