Every night I walk outside at around ten (we have dogs) and I see many orb weavers building their webs. And every morning at around seven, I’ll go out and they will be gone, unless it is wet or very foggy to the point that there are drops on the webs. Why? Does the dew affect them? For better or worse? Maybe they can’t pick it up while wet? Any guidance greatly appreciated.
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It may be partially that the dew makes webs very visually obvious to us, so on the non-dew days we just can’t see the distant webs even though they’re still there. On the other hand, it does seem plausible that dew would make it difficult for spiders to eat their webs, so they may wait until it dries off later in the day.
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Most of spiders with nets are hiding during the day, but orbweavers are complicated, I see some females at day not caring but others I see at night only, ecpecially the biggest ones. Sure, they won’t like it wet, it can lead to fungus, but I saw some at the morning, like this one https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20163823
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I have dogs, lol. They go through everything. There aren’t spiderwebs, at least not in the normal spots, lol.
That’s a very interesting question. I have seen the same spider build and maintain a web over long periods of time. If the web is not disturbed, it seems to persist for long periods of time. For example, a Cross Orbweaver Araneus diadematus spider has taken up residence in a sheltered corner near the front door of my house. I’ve been observing it over time. The web does seem to persist over days at a time, however; that’s a qualitative observation. I will monitor the web building more closely and try to determine how often the web is rebuilt.
Here’s an observation where the spider is rebuilding the web
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43523073
Here was my initial observation of the same spider five weeks prior
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40906536
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