Spider Weather Forecasting

On foggy summer mornings, before the sun burns through, our lawn may sport many bedewed cobwebs built during the night by hungry spiders. Building the web requires considerable effort and resources from the small grass spider, who lies in wait in the special funnel leading down into the grass. When an insect wanders onto the sticky strands, the spider leaps from the web funnel onto the insect and injects fluids that immobilize it and begin liquefying its insides, the better to sip of, in the safety of the protective funnel.
The spider would avoid a waste of its resources and will not weave unless it has called the local weather service and been told that no storms will wreck its efforts for the next 12 hours or so. Or so it would seem, because an early morning sighting of many dewy grass spiders' webs often forecasts a reasonably sunny summer day, until perhaps early evening thunderstorms reset the stage.