Today’s post is another in a series of occasional guest essays by 10-year old Madison MacRae. Madison is certainly the budding naturalist in our family, having accompanied me on recent collecting trips to the sand prairies of southeast Missouri and the White River Hills of southwest Missouri, as well as numerous hikes. Her previous guest contributions to this blog include “Entumalejust” and “My favorite bettle”.
For today’s post, Madison illustrates and discusses several different types of spiders, including the “Tranchala” (several of which she has owned as pets), Wolf spider (seen one day sprawled on the kitchen floor of our house-in-the-woods), “Snow spider” (likely recalling this experience), “Spring spider” (?), “Herry spider” (aren’t they all?), and Crab spider (she came up with this one on her own, honest!).
"Creepy Crawly Spiders" - by Madison MacRae
Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009
Beetles In The Bush 
Heh… now I kinda want one 🙂 A pet spider that is, not a kid 😛 (that’s too much of a responsibility for me)
On a more serious note, gotta be nice to have someone in your family who likes bugs… 😦
My dad likes kid because he has me!!! I use to have a Tranchala but it died 😦 Thank you so much for your comment!!!
Well done Madison!
Naturalist in the making.
Thank you Pete for your comment. I realy liked what you said.
Hi Madison, On a recent trip to the foothills of California I saw about half a dozen “Taranchalas” crossing the road. These were all boys. The boys come out every fall and wander around looking for girls. The girls are the smart ones. They stay in their burrows and wait for the guys to find them! Unfortunately for the boys its their last year of life. After they finish looking for the girls they die. So if you want to have a long-lived Tarantula, you need to find a girl in her burrow. They can live for a long time.
Thank you for telling me all about the male and the femail. It was great. My dad got the Taranchala from oklahoma .Now I Know why the Taranchala died.
It can take seven or eight years for a Tarantula to grow up. Sadly the grown up boys only have that one adult year to find a girl. The girls take about the same amount of time to grow up, but they can live another seven or eight years as adults.
Your picture really captured his hairy legs well!
Great post, Madison! I love your drawings 😀
Thank you maggie for that comment. I’m a drawer.
Thanks, Madison! I learned so much from your spider illustrations. They are very good! The crab spider is my favorite. It looks like a crab! It is nice when their names are so descriptive. I look forward to seeing more.
Thank you for the comment Justin. I named the crab spider myself.
This is a great field reference. But what is spider #7?
It’s wonderful to see such enthusiasm for nature in younger folks. I wish the kids I’d babysat when in my teens had shown even half that interest in the outdoors. They were all big tv-watchers.
Heh – things don’t always add up with the little one 🙂
It’s funny – my older daughter was never afraid of “bugs” when she was young but could care less about them now, while the little one (Madison) had a tremendous fear of insects from the start. She’s still a little afraid of them but loves to bug hunt and hike w/ me like the older one never did. They are their own people!
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Too adorable! Always a thrill to see a budding naturalist who appreciates all the wonder there is to see. Spiders were a fine choice for this post, Madison, a fine choice indeed.
Thank you very much. I p;icked this because I like to draw spiders.
Hi Madison:
You probably remember me as the “ant man” from the entomology meetings.
Nice to see your spider drawings and your interest in them. They have always been one of my other strong interests besides ants. If you ever have ant questions, your dad knows how to contact me…
James
I do remeber you. Your the ant guy.when I hiked with you we found these really pretty orange mushrooms.