A hairy armpit spider-ball. These were all over the place, and unfortunately most prevalent when the canyon got less than a foot wide and you had no choice than to pass your face within inches of this nightmarish arachnid party. These are more harvest men spiders, and apparently even science does not know why they do this: congregate by the hundreds into overlapping, sometimes pulsating masses. Theories include trying to conserve water somehow, defense, but no one really knows. Joel's finger included for scale.
Comments
Ewwwww. I hope Shaver Lake doesn't have spiders like these.
— Catherine Hovell
Double ewwwwwwww. How did you know what this was? Had you heard about them before hand?
— Margaret Hovell
Catherine - Shaver Lake, no spiders. These critters live in the dry hot desert. Mom - these guys have become something of legend over previous trips. Sometimes they can be almost as big as a basketball and pulsate in unison (nobody knows why). I guess we decided to look them up on the Internet at some point. Harvest Man spiders are a very broad classification and not that much is known about these ones. Great idea for a bio or zoology PhD thesis, especially if you like canyons!
— John Hovell