I have noticed that my spider videos get about a fifth of the traffic of my other videos, which means I must make more, many more, in order to train my audience. You don’t think people just naturally gravitated to cat videos, do you? It took years of exposure to overcome ailurophobia and accustom people to seeing lithe hairy predators (note: description applies to both spiders and cats) on their computer screens. So you just need more. You WILL watch the spiders. You WILL learn to love them.
This is Iðunn, my first specimen of Parasteatoda tepidariorum caught in the spring of 2019. I discovered that she had molted either last night or this morning, so here she is with her leftover cuticle.
WATCH IT. WATCH IT NOOOOOOOOWWWWWW.
That is so interesting – so there is actually some sort of color or pigment in the cuticle? I am accustomed to seeing the molted skins of snakes but those have no pattern or color whatsoever whereas this cuticle appears to have pattern in it. I just found a bird’s nest from last year that had the molted skin of a snake used as a base for the nest. I wonder if very small birds use the molted cuticle of a spider for their nests, that would make an interesting find but probably requires pretty good eyesight.
The color may be a consequence of the tanning reaction in the new cuticle. Normally, these spiders are red/brown with black bands on the limbs — notice how this one is light gray with black bands, but the legs are also a bit floppy and soft. I’ll look in tomorrow, and expect she’ll have a reddish cast again once the tanning enzymes have completed their work.
She’s beautiful! I love the patterns on her abdomen.
This: https://www.flickr.com/photos/coraxyn/5739628861/in/album-72157604114781638/
and
this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/coraxyn/5615909311/in/album-72157604114781638/
I would love more videos of spiders catching and eating their food.
I think I’m inured to these videos because I have a few Facebook friends that have big tarantula collections, and I often wake up to giant pictures of hairy spiders; these are downright cutsie pootsie in comparison.
You make lounn seem so personable that I want to see more of these videos!!