Last night I went out to put goats in the barn slightly after dark. As I got closer to the barn I…
ahedderick:
Quietly spooky
This is your Spooky Season reminder that some spider species have a tapetum lucidium, allowing their lateral eyes to shine like cats’ and dogs’ do. So, if you go out on a dark early-fall evening before the dew has appeared and shine a dim led light* around, you can see dozens of tiny ‘sparks’ in the grass and weeds. Those are spiders’ eyes.
’* I realize that 'dim’ and 'led’ sound like opposing concepts. I have a headlight, however, that has a bright white setting and two dimmer settings for red and green. The dimmer settings really bring out that eyeshine!
(There is a paragraph in the wiki article about spiders specifically)
Tapetum lucidum - Wikipedia
“Most species of spider also have a tapetum, which is located only in their smaller, lateral eyes; the larger central eyes have no such structure. This consists of reflective crystalline deposits and is thought to have a similar function to the structure of the same name in vertebrates. Four general patterns can be distinguished in spiders:”
Last night I went out to put goats in the barn slightly after dark. As I got closer to the barn I could see a sizeable, bright spark winking in the taller grass at the edge of the yard. Seemed too big to be a spider, unless maybe it was a great big wolf spider. I went over, and it turned out to be - a very ordinary-sized wolf spider. Only about an inch/2.5cm across. I couldn’t imagine why her eye shine was visible from a good 8yds/meters away.
But this morning I started thinking - “bigs my eyes at you!” Tumblr-poisoned as I am. Did. Did she 'big’ her eyes at me? Stars shining above and spiders shining below. What a world.
https://ahedderick.tumblr.com/post/831185981031989248
#barnslightly #gotcloser #dark #goats #night #tapetum #spookyseason
#rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit
ahedderick.tumblr.com (Unofficial)
npub1xt…xt3mj
2026-10-22 20:43:42 UTC
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wss://relay.primal.netPublished at
2026-10-22 20:43:42 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Last night I went out to put goats in the barn slightly after dark. As I got closer to the barn I…\n\nahedderick:\nQuietly spooky\nThis is your Spooky Season reminder that some spider species have a tapetum lucidium, allowing their lateral eyes to shine like cats’ and dogs’ do. So, if you go out on a dark early-fall evening before the dew has appeared and shine a dim led light* around, you can see dozens of tiny ‘sparks’ in the grass and weeds. Those are spiders’ eyes.\n’* I realize that 'dim’ and 'led’ sound like opposing concepts. I have a headlight, however, that has a bright white setting and two dimmer settings for red and green. The dimmer settings really bring out that eyeshine!\n(There is a paragraph in the wiki article about spiders specifically)\nTapetum lucidum - Wikipedia\n“Most species of spider also have a tapetum, which is located only in their smaller, lateral eyes; the larger central eyes have no such structure. This consists of reflective crystalline deposits and is thought to have a similar function to the structure of the same name in vertebrates. Four general patterns can be distinguished in spiders:”\nLast night I went out to put goats in the barn slightly after dark. As I got closer to the barn I could see a sizeable, bright spark winking in the taller grass at the edge of the yard. Seemed too big to be a spider, unless maybe it was a great big wolf spider. I went over, and it turned out to be - a very ordinary-sized wolf spider. Only about an inch/2.5cm across. I couldn’t imagine why her eye shine was visible from a good 8yds/meters away.\nBut this morning I started thinking - “bigs my eyes at you!” Tumblr-poisoned as I am. Did. Did she 'big’ her eyes at me? Stars shining above and spiders shining below. What a world.\n\nhttps://ahedderick.tumblr.com/post/831185981031989248\n\n#barnslightly #gotcloser #dark #goats #night #tapetum #spookyseason\n\n#rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit",
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