A Billion Little Spiders

Yesterday as I walked past the side of Kathy's car, just behind the wheel I saw something sticking to the car.  I couldn't imagine what it was, so I bent down and moved closer, and got the surprise of my life!

There seemed to be hundreds of tiny yellow spiders, all together.  Notice the white "scratches" on the paint?  I wondered how the paint had gotten that scratched.  It's not scratched - those are really thin strings of spider silk.  Each spider seemed to be attached to one, and if one spider fell out of the group, it would pull itself back up on the silk!  So, off to Google.  I discovered that these are baby Garden Spiders maybe 2 days old, and their eggs were laid last fall, according to the article.  These babies are not harmful to humans.  They grow up to be large brown Garden Spiders which we have all seen hanging upside down in the middle of their nearly circular webs, waiting to catch insects.  These are really good to have around!  Better than insect sprays! 

So this morning, they had all moved around to the back of the car and were gathered on the red tail light.  It was fascinating to watch them with my close-up lens.  Now that they are hatched, they'll stay together until they mature enough to crawl off independently.  We'll see.  What an astounding thing to witness.  This happens every year, and yet I have never seen anything like this!