The colony has expanded just a little bit: all new, roomier containers for the largest of the black widows.
The smaller ones still have some growin’ to do in the incubator, but these I think are just about ripe for breeding.
We just struggled to figure out how to put fitted sheets on a split-top bed, so I’m too tired to do it. Here are a few videos to do the job.
This first one is looking at spiders from an evolutionary perspective — it’s at a basic level, since the first thing it has to explain is that spiders aren’t insects.
This second one is more about spider cognition. It has a similar problem, since what it says isn’t really new. I took a grad-level physiology course from Michael Land in 1980 that focused almost entirely on jumping spiders, and we talked about similar things.
That course was the highlight of my first year of grad school. I guess it’s not surprising that I returned to spiders here in my dotage.
Looks delicious.
I’d share, but I’ve only got enough for the bigger spiders — these are more expensive than mealworms, but aren’t they festive?
Humans at my house are going to have to settle for a vegetarian shepherd’s pie.
I was about to fix some dinner tonight, when I noticed this resting quietly in my frying pan.
They may have been offering themselves up as a sacrifice, but I am a magnanimous spider lord, and I set them free instead.
In case you were worried about yesterday’s spider who was tangled in their molt, worry no more. They are free!
Sometimes it’s hard to count.
They’ll walk away from their molt and eventually it’ll be a less confusing tangle.
I know exactly how this guy feels.
I’ll be handing out festive spider balls to all the trick-or-treaters coming by my house tonight.
Unless they request a trick, in which case they get something more venomous.
Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!
