Circle of life: Vulture and wolf spider mommies

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

The other day, I pulled into my driveway and was greeted by a whiff of death. Eleven black vultures were hopping around in my front yard and playing tug of war with the guts of an opossum.

Ahh, nature! The beauty around us! Take a breath of that late summer air!

I was happy that my yard was contributing to the circle of life. After all, these mommy vultures have to find a constant supply of road kill because, according to HawkMountain.org, they regurgitate food for their young as often as 20 times per day.

Everywhere you look, mommies are taking care of their little ones. Every day or two lately, I have found wolf spiders on the linoleum floor in my house. These brown spiders are about the size of those plastic spider rings my kids get at Halloween parties.

It’s tough to tell which is the mommy wolf spider until you step on them. The moms don’t just crumble, they explode, scattering dozens of little baby spiders that scurry in all directions.

As it turns out, wolf spiders are unusual in that, after hatching, spiderlings live on their mother’s back for a few weeks until they’re large enough to hunt on their own, according to SpiderzRule.com.

All this talk of mothers almost makes me teary-eyed when I see my wife taking care of our own children, feeding them dinner like the vulture mommies and watching them scurry in all directions like the wolf spider mommies when it’s time for bed.

Ahh, nature! What a blessed man I am to be at the center of the circle of life! The beauty all around me!