Among the different types of insects I’ve encountered, different groups seem to let me handle them more than others. Moths seem to be the most cooperative, which is wonderful for me since I tend to enjoy their company the most anyway. Last night I held my finger out for one to crawl on but it wasn’t…

I rescued the weevil Lepidonotaris petax from what looked like a remnant of a spider-web a few days ago. It (the web) was obviously loose, broken, and no spider was around, but the weevil still managed to get stuck in there. I used a stick and quickly got the little insect out. The photo you see in …

Im a not a fan of rescuing insects from spider web or other prey from their predators. The latter need to make their living as well and with human interferance it might be that their chances of survival and successful reproduction are dimished… how is that fair at all? I used to work in an wild ani…

It is certainly a controversial opinion but I think, in general, we should treat these situations as humans and not as ecologists tending to an Earth-sized preserve or something. Not everything is about biodiversity and ecosystems, some things are about plain emotions and morality. I think we aren’…

In general I try not to intervene with nature as a default. Although if you know the meal is much more rare than the predator, I could see there being merit there.

If it’s an old web that is not being used, I don’t see any harm, but may not bother if it is something small that I probably couldn’t help without accidentally squishing or something that might sting me. I have rescued dragonflies and damselflies I know but don’t have any observations for them (migh…

On a somewhat related note, I have on multiple occasions rescued birds from spider webs! (If you’re concerned about the interference, there was absolutely no way the spiders in question would have been able to eat a bird, so it would have just resulted in a slow unpleasant death for the bird and a …

[image] pliantscience: For that individual insect or gazelle or bird, it matters. For that lioness that might have had a well needed hunting success to feed her young it matters just as much if you interfere… you might just have caused the death of of those cups… what about the empathy for th…

I pulled a ringneck snake out of an old spiderweb yesterday. Looked like it got its head stuck in an egg sac after eating the eggs. What can I say? I like ringnecks and don’t like the things they eat as much. :)

Again I would ask what we would do in this scenario where a human or a pet or something is involved. Will you allow a mountain lion to eat your dog? They may not have had a meal in weeks. I suppose we would make exceptions in those cases, but on what basis, exactly? But really I am not at all advoc…

Rescuing insects from spider webs

Nature Talk

graysquirrel August 21, 2022, 5:11pm 2

I’ll rescue things from spiderwebs if the web is obviously abandoned and in disrepair - there’s no spider around to benefit from it, so I figure there’s no harm in doing so!

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Rescuing insects from spider webs

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