Today my spider squad is stopping by my place for a spider identification party — they’ve been out sampling spider diversity, and are bringing their captives to a central location so we can figure out who they are (don’t worry, we’ll be setting the majority of them free afterwards). Then we’re going to run through our survey protocol, practicing on my garage, and set up our schedule for site visits starting next week. This is going to be challenging because I’m not a spider expert by any means — but the only way to get better at it is to dive in and start actually working with the adorable little beasties.
I can now spot Parasteatoda tepidariorum fairly easily, but other species I have to stare out for a while and flip through notes. P. tepidariorum is the species I’ve got thriving in the lab colony. Well, “thriving” is a little optimistic: the individuals are well-fed and looking good, but I still suffer from a shortage of males. I need more egg cases so I can separate the spiderlings early and alleviate some of the male mortality, but obviously I need more males to get more egg cases.
It’s going to be great fun!
How big are your breeding cases? P. tepidariorums males will hang out for days, sometimes weeks, on the edge of a female’s web, a foot or more away from her. And they survive the mating as often as not. I have seen one live through two egg-laying events, only being eaten on the third.
“Today my spider squad is stopping by my place for a spider identification party — they’ve been out sampling spider diversity, and are bringing their captives to a central location so we can figure out who they are (don’t worry, we’ll be setting the majority of them free afterwards).”
I hope your spiders do a good job of identifying your students. It is really nice that the spiders will release most of them afterwards. I feel sorry for the minority that will be liquified and consumed. The price of science, I guess. Is this how professors usually learn their student’s names?
Can’t you at least squish at least one or two ,pleeeasse .
I use 9cm long, 3cm dia tubes. I’ve had males survive multiple breedings, but the latest crop of females seem to be hair trigger on the cannibalism bit.
I’ve been planning to go with some bigger cases I have just for mating purposes, to see if that helps.
we’re going to run through our survey protocol, practicing on my garage
Ah, as a behavioural scientist, I can only congratulate you on this. Too often researchers do not standardize their instruments. I will admit I have never done this in a garage but what the heck?
I am envious of how you have recruited students. Where I live, most students are scattered to the four corners of the country and the world by the First of May.