Spinning Out of Control : Spider Insiders Explain Spread of a New Arrival

It’s a web of intrigue that has entangled Los Angeles for weeks: Why are there suddenly so many spiders hanging around?

“You knock the webs down one day and the next day they’re back,” complained building contractor Bill Karn of Hollywood.

Preschool teacher Allison Aries of Woodland Hills grumbled that there’s no storybook quality to the cobweb outbreak. “They’re everywhere this year,” she said. “It’s not like ‘Charlotte’s Web.’ ”

Call it Holocnemus pluchei’s web.

That’s the scientific name of the newest spider in town, an aggressive little web-spinner that is content to hang its hat between any pair of surfaces.

Common in Asia and Europe, the spider popped up in San Francisco about 20 years ago, according to biologist Blaine Hebert.

A few were noticed in outlying Southern California mobile home parks in 1984 and several were seen four years ago at a La Puente truck stop, he said.

But this year, they apparently have crawled everywhere--their webs adding to those that are spun by the other 600 species of spiders in California.

The rains that have produced this year’s bumper crop of mosquitoes and flies have also contributed to the new spider’s rapid spread, said Hebert, a 37-year-old spider specialist who is a consultant for local agencies and pest control firms.

“It’s a newly invaded nuisance spider that’s going to cause people a lot more broom time on the ceiling,” he predicted.

Los Angeles County officials said they were aware of increased spider activity this year. But they were surprised to learn of the newcomer.

“It would only come to our attention if it became a problem,” said Frank Hall, chief of the county Health Department’s Vectorborne Disease Surveillance and Entomology Program. “There are too many species out there to keep track of.”

The only threat from the H . pluchei is to those who try to pronounce its name, according to Hebert.

“I can’t imagine it would bite anybody,” he said. “Its fangs are incredibly small and fused together. They’re designed for nipping at insects, not biting people.”

Pointing to shrubs outside his Pasadena home filled with the new spider’s dome-shaped webs, Hebert laughed when an onlooker stumbled over the creature’s tongue-twisting moniker.

Hebert peered into the shrubs and decided the new spider should have a new name.

The spider is a marbled gray color with a black belly and banded legs, he said. It somewhat resembles a grayish-buff-colored spider that for decades has been a fixture on most homeowners’ ceilings.

“ ‘Marbled cellar spider,’ ” he declared. “There. It just got named. I’m on the American Arachnological Society’s Common Names Committee. So I think it just got named.”

Hebert said the marbled cellar spider will probably continue to increase in number locally, particularly if its young turn out to be ones that “balloon,” getting scattered by the wind. Spiders produce 50 to 100 young at a time.

“They’re going to be here forever,” he said, noting that Northern California and the Central Valley are already infested with the marbled cellar spider.

Hebert sympathized with those who believe that a new spider is the last thing Los Angeles needs, even if it is something that will trap and eat flies and mosquitoes.

“I have as much arachnophobia as anybody,” he said. “When something crawls across my face at night, I jump out of my skin.

“As long as they’re in the jar or in the bushes, I’m fine. If they jump out, I jump.”

The Spider Story Body length: Up to one-quarter inch.

Leg length: Two inches.

Appearance: Oval-shaped abdomen with a rounded head. Marbled gray color with solid black

patch on underside.

Life span: About one year.

Diet: Ladybugs, flies, mosquitoes.

Web: Spins a thin, filmy dome, 4 to 18 inches in diameter.

Origin: Common in Asia and Europe.

First California sighting: San Francisco, about 20 years ago.

First Los Angeles-area sighting: La Puente, 1988.

SOURCE: Biologist Blaine Hebert