Spidersign!

I’ve been checking this one spot along my walk to work all Spring, a row of metal signposts along a parking lot. These are simply dark metal objects that absorb what heat there is, and while they look barren and uninteresting, they have been a reliable home for a population of small spiders.

On Sunday, I saw nothing there. Yesterday, Monday, I saw this:

It’s silk. Just a few strands of spider silk across the bar, telling me that spiders have moved in. All of the signposts have silk to varying degrees, suggesting that maybe there was a recent hatch and a spider swarm is repopulating the area.

It’s reassuring to see, even as I’m buried under grading. Just two weeks to go before the semester ends and 6 months of sabbatical begins.

Blue has outgrown her home!

She’s been living in a plexiglas cube that used to be quite comfortable for her, but that pile of molts I keep on top is testimony that she just keeps on growing.

So crowded. So shabby. So this morning I relocated her to a huge, roomy 29 gallon fish tank, about 75cm x 25cm, with high class furnishings.

If you want to see it, you can get the full story on Patreon.

OK, if you don’t want to subscribe, I’ve also posted a photo on Instagram.

Feminine stereotypes

Male tarantulas, when they reach sexual maturity, are focused on wandering away to find sex, to the point where they may lose interest in eating.

Females, on the other hand, turn into voracious consumers of calories.

Blue wants her morning mealworm, and strikes like lightning.

I think Blue is a she

Blue is the lab mascot, a Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens, and after their last molt, they’ve acquired the dark blue and blue-green colors of a mature greenbottle blue tarantula, and maybe reached sexual maturity. I’ve been checking out those palps, and they look very feminine to me.

Let me know what you think.

Fortunately, Blue is a perfectly good name for a female. Or male. Or immature juvenile.