Geraldine

Anyone living in Costa Rica could start a successful blog about bugs without risk of ever running out of new material. Bugs here are endless and include ants that shred fruit trees, ants that clean your kitchen, ants that sting like all heck and ants that eat your house. There is an endless assortment of beetles, some of which come in great infestations, loads of moths and butterflies and then of course, spiders.

We are very selective about which webs we clean and which we leave. That is because there are so many bugs in Costa Rica that we are greatful to have a little help keeping the numbers down. As a rule, webs that could catch our kids or cats get taken down and the said spider gets to participate in our relocation program. This fancy lady was carefully moved to a bushy stump in back of our house. The girls have named her Geraldine.

Geraldine is a spinybacked orbweaver. It turns out that she is very common all over the world. We think she is devine. The morning after we moved her, she already had her new web up in place. There is nothing quite like a new pet that looks after itself. Having the time with my girls to relocate and name spiders is pretty special too.