Famiglia: ARANEIDAE

Nome comune: /

Nome scientifico: Neoscona subfusca (C.L.Koch, 1837)

Global distribution (WSC 2021): Southern Europe, Africa, Turkey, Middle East, Ukraine, Caucasus, Russia (Europe) to Central Asia

GPS (Neapolis):

37.077071, 15.279381

37.073703, 15.278328

37.074495, 15.277655

37.075054, 15.275224

Caratteristiche anatomiche: Questa specie varia dal giallognolo al marrone scuro, presenta zampe anulate e ricche di rigidi peli sensori. Il corpo è coperto da peluria, che sul prosoma è più chiara, tendente al bianco.

Comportamento: Ragno per lo più notturno, costruisce delle tele orbicolari fra i rami degli alberi, è stato osservato frequentemente in agrumeti.

Anatomical features: This species varies from yellowish to dark brown, has ringed legs rich in stiff sensory hairs. The body is covered with hairs, which on the prosoma are lighter, tending to white.

Behaviour: A mostly nocturnal spider, it builds orbicular webs in the branches of trees and has frequently been observed in citrus groves.

The thin layer of soil that forms a patchy covering over the continents controls our own existence and that of every other animal of the land. Without soil, land plants as we know them could not grow, and without plants no animals could survive. Yet if our agriculture-based life depends on the soil, it is equally true that soil depends on life, its very origins and the maintenance of its true nature being intimately related to living plants and animals. For soil is in part a creation of life, born of a marvelous interaction of life and nonlife long eons ago. The parent materials were gathered together as volcanoes poured them out in fiery streams, as waters running over the bare rocks of the continents wore away even the hardest granite, and as the chisels of frost and ice split and shattered the rocks. Then living things began to work their creative magic and little by little these inert materials became soil. … 

Life not only formed the soil, but other living things of incredible abundance and diversity now exist within it; if this were not so the soil would be a dead and sterile thing. By their presence and by their activities the myriad organisms of the soil make it capable of supporting the earth’s green mantle. The soil exists in a state of constant change, taking part in cycles that have no beginning and no end. New materials are constantly being contributed as rocks disintegrate, as organic matter decays, and as nitrogen and other gases are brought down in rain from the skies. At the same time other materials are being taken away, borrowed for temporary use by living creatures. Subtle and vastly important chemical changes are constantly in progress, converting elements derived from air and water into forms suitable for use by plants. In all these changes living organisms are active agents.

...

What happens to these incredibly numerous and vitally necessary inhabitants of the soil when poisonous chemicals are carried down into their world, either introduced directly as soil ‘sterilants’ or borne on the rain that has picked up a lethal contamination as it filters through the leaf canopy of forest and orchard and cropland? … Chemical control of insects seems to have proceeded on the assumption that the soil could and would sustain any amount of insult via the introduction of poisons without striking back. The very nature of the world of the soil has been largely ignored.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962

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