If you drive on Walker Avenue in Ashland, you may have noticed a new and exciting resident at ScienceWorks: Beatrice the Widowmaker, our new giant spider sculpture!

Created out of steel by sculptor Cheryl Garcia in 2008, Beatrice has moved around a bit, but she has finally found her forever home here with us at the museum. A kind Ashland local who purchased the property where Beatrice was living donated her to ScienceWorks, and we are overjoyed to have cleaned her up, given her a fresh coat of paint, and installed her where the whole town can see and enjoy her. Her slightly spooky, shiny black exterior reminds us that Monster Ball is coming, and that spider season is upon us!

Late summer is giant house spider mating season, and you will likely see a lot of these harmless but hairy locals out and about in your homes and garages looking for love. House spiders of all kinds are often found around human-built structures, where they like to hide and help keep our homes free of mosquitos, ants, and other pest insects.

If you find a lonely house spider this fall, consider releasing it outside so it can continue protecting our homes and gardens. Like many spiders, male house spiders have longer legs but smaller bodies than the females, though female giant house spiders don't have anything on Beatrice!

Beatrice is an abstracted interpretation of a widow spider; the genus that includes brown, red, and black widows. These spiders earned their name because they partake in a type of cannibalism in which the venomous female eats the harmless male after mating. Talk about a bad date! Despite this gruesome habit and their scary reputation, black widows like Beatrice mostly stick to themselves and try to avoid interacting with humans. When they do bite, their venom can be painful but is rarely fatal. 

Luckily for us, Beatrice is a widow spider you can interact with without worrying about a bite. Stroll down Walker Avenue to welcome her to the neighborhood this fall, and take a photo or two to ring in spider season and the approach of Halloween!