Plagues of spiders, and spiders plagued

Sometimes a headline just stands out from the monotony. Like this one: "Spider plague closes Australian hospital" (LINK, Apr 22, 2008). The ABC version is "Redback plague closes hospital" (LINK, Apr 23, 2008) which has a link to the audio version, beginning with "It sounds like the stuff of a B-grade horror movie ...". My kind of story. "Poisonous spiders and patients ..." are apparently a bad combination.

We usually only see a few spiders in a day, but nature has a way of taking advantage of just the right conditions and producing surprising biomass. There are millions of eggs and seeds of bugs, creatures and plants for every acre of land on earth, waiting for just the right conditions.

Spiders in Australia again: "Warning of deadly spider plague" (LINK, news.com.au, Jan 20, 2006). Early rains produce a regular annual plague earlier than usual, this time funnel-web spiders.

Every few years, here we go. "SPIDER INVASION" (LINK, extraOnline.com.au, Oct 30, 2002) -- "Queensland is in the grip of the worst spider plague ever - with the hot and dry conditions creating the perfect breeding ground." At least 20 people bitten. Though brief, this article offers some tips on destroying spiders and the ominous conclusion, "If you're persistent the spider will eventually get the message and move on." As opposed to the spiders coming back with their own cans of poison and zapping you while you sleep.

Oddly, here's a lesson in the consumer economics, using an example of battling -- you guessed it -- a plague of red-back spiders in Australia: "$100 is cheaper than $20!" by John Stanley (LINK, johnstanley.cc).

I don't know how many spiders it takes to qualify for a "plague". Plenty of people think one spider is too many, but if we killed all the spiders we'd be swarming with an even bigger plague of smaller pests the spiders help to control.

Being twisted, I wondered if anything plagued spiders. Sure enough, in an interesting long article about social spider colonies ("Spider Solidarity Forever"), I found this: "A mysterious spider plague swept through Panama in 1983, killing entire nests of cooperative spiders." (LINK from Science News - May 8, 1999).

The downside to living in huge colonies is the easy spread of disease and the reduction of genetic diversity. So, if we lived in smaller, more scattered colonies, the spiders would be free to plague across the countryside, and never bother us at all?