ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Tiffany Hall needs spiders.
She has searched around her Asheville neighborhood, checked fences and gardens, looked around her house and recruited friends and neighbors to join the hunt.
“I posted on the Westridge peeps, ‘I need spiders,’” Hall said. “So I’ve got my neighbors out looking for spiders and sending me photos.”
Friends elsewhere in North Carolina have been enlisted, too.
And Hall isn’t ruling out a road trip.
“Yeah, will travel for spiders,” she said.
Hall’s spider hunt is part of Spider Week, a Science Across NC citizen science project running through Oct. 11 that encourages people to photograph spiders and submit their observations through iNaturalist.
Hall stumbled into citizen science this summer after a friend suggested they find something to do together. They ended up at Moth Mania at Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary, an Asheville event celebrating National Moth Week.
“I did not know there was such a thing,” Hall said.
At Beaver Lake, UV lights were set up to attract moths and other nighttime insects. Participants could walk around, photograph what showed up and submit their finds to iNaturalist.
Hall joined in.
“And then you get your moth sticker,” she said. “And I have my moth sticker.”
That sticker helped lead to spiders.
When Hall received it in the mail, information about the upcoming spider search came with it.
“I was like, ‘I can get a spider sticker, too,’” she said.
So she started looking.
Hall has searched around her neighborhood and while visiting friends. She has checked local gardens and fences. A weekend at a lake with girlfriends turned into another opportunity to look.
“Anytime I’m walking along fences,” she said, she is watching for spiders.
The hunt has also spread beyond Hall.
“I’ve got everybody else I know in North Carolina looking, too, to send me pictures,” she said.
One friend started looking while out on a walk and later told Hall, “That was so fun.”
That might be the part Hall likes best.
“For me, it is this thing about community,” she said. “It’s getting community citizens to be, you know, like citizen scientists basically.”
But it is also about looking at the world a little differently.
“I am fascinated by the outside world,” Hall said. “It fills me with wonder and amazement and, you know, to me it’s where all this magic is.”
And spider hunting has given her an excuse to share some of that magic.
“It’s like this little tiny window of being a kid again that I get to share with everyone,” Hall said. “It’s just kind of a way to, I don’t know, share happiness with everybody.”
There is one spider Hall particularly wants to find before the week is over.
An Argiope — the orb weaver commonly known as a writing spider.
Hall remembers the spiders from childhood, along with the warnings children passed around about them.
“Don’t smile at the writing spider,” she said. “It’ll see your teeth and write your name.”
Hall isn’t afraid of them.
“I love them,” she said.
At a former home, Hall had one that regularly appeared in the bushes. She gave it a name tag and even fed it bugs.
So far this year, though, her favorite spider has remained elusive.
“I’ve got all kinds of other ones that have shown up, but I haven’t found that one yet,” Hall said.
Then she spotted a photograph on Facebook. A man in Black Mountain had posted a picture of what appeared to be the spider Hall has been trying to find.
She doesn’t know him.
That may not stop her.
“I might just go,” Hall said, laughing about the possibility of heading to Black Mountain to see whether the spider is still there.
She has only until Oct. 11.
Hall is quick to point out that spider hunting doesn’t mean she wants every spider she finds moving into her house.
Instead, she likes having a reason to go outside and pay attention.
“It’s a way to get outside and have a purpose of something that you’re looking for, you know, a focus,” Hall said.
And for the next few days, at least, that focus is spiders.
Especially one writing spider.