Seattle's spiders are single and ready to mingle

Rod Crawford, the arachnid curator of the University of Washington's Burke Museum, is the region's most well-known spider expert. Here are a few spider myths Crawford has debunked, as taken from his excellent Spider Myths blog. Myth: Most spiders could not bite humans because their fangs are too small. Crawford says: "It's not that spiders can't bite, but that they don't bite except very rarely. And on those rare occasions, the bite almost always has only trivial effects on the human who, after all, weighs from a million to several million times as much as the spider!" less Rod Crawford, the arachnid curator of the University of Washington's Burke Museum, is the region's most well-known spider expert. Here are a few spider myths Crawford has debunked, as taken from his excellent ... more Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Seattle's spiders are single and ready to mingle 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

You're not seeing more spiders in and around your house lately because there are suddenly more spiders in and around your house. You're seeing them because they're trying to find dates.

The region's spiders become more and more conspicuous in late summer and early fall, when they become sexually mature, according to Rod Crawford, the arachnid coordinator at the University of Washington's Burke Museum. So while juveniles in late spring and early summer were actually more plentiful than the adults are now, we're just noticing them more than we used to.

"What they're doing, if you want to put it in terms that everybody understands, is cruising for chicks," Crawford told SeattlePI on Wednesday.

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Just like many of Seattle's other singles, the city's spider community is looking to settle down for the fall. Male house spiders, the ones you generally notice scuttling by, will mate with as many females as possible, which might sound like fun if you're a male house spider.

But playing the field comes with a trade-off.

"A male, after he has become mature and mated with as many females as he can find, is going to die within a few weeks," Crawford said.

Once male house spiders become sexually mature, they lose their ability to build webs and forage for food (one-track minds, perhaps?), so they venture away from their webs in order to find mates. By contrast, female spiders are homebodies who don't generally go out unless their webs are disturbed or their food supply runs out.

So, no, the spiders aren't multiplying. They're just hoping to multiply.

Check out the gallery above for more spider myths debunked from the Burke's excellent blog.

Seattlepi.com reporter Stephen Cohen can be reached at 206-448-8313 or stephencohen@seattlepi.com. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @scohenPI.