My first two true spiders

[mmfh]

I have a little brown house spider living in my cotton ball cup in my bathroom. It just molted yesterday, which was feeding day. How long do house spiders fangs take to harden? Is it similar to tarantulas?

Also, just thought i'd share a story and ask more questions . While at work my co workers called me to let me know a spider was in the hallway. Turns out it is an american house spider and I also grabbed an eggsack that was hanging nearby. When I put the eggsack in the container I did a poor job and it was hanging but also sitting on the coco fiber. Today I noticed that she had moved it up higher in the fake plant. Does this mean it is fertile? Also, when I dropped a pinhead cricket into the container it totally missed the webbing. Will she hunt the crickets down or do they have to land in the web?

Thank you.

[Ciphor]

Hello Mmfh,

True spiders need some time to harden up just like most Arthropods. I usually wait 7 days to offer them food after a molt.

By american house spider do you mean Parasteatoda tepidariorum? If so, they are egg laying machines. I wouldn't worry to much about one egg sac, many more are coming I'm sure. I found one last summer with thirteen egg sacs in her web. I had to take pictures to get anyone to believe me lol.

This spiders web is actually not designed to ensnare prey falling into it, or flying into it nearly as much as it is designed to alert the spider of prey trying to navigate the portion of the web anchored to the ground, or below. From my experience prey very rarely actually get stuck to the cobweb, but instead bump against the silk strands, alerting the spider of their location. If you watch the spider capture prey, you will see it moves down a few strands, and waits for another signal, till it pin points where the prey is, then she will flip around backwards and start feeding sticky silk at the prey. This is one of my favorite spiders to watch, as they truely have some cool capturing skills, I think more advanced then Widows and false widows.

You can see 10 of the egg sacs in this image, one is freshly hatched with a swarm of slings around it. 3 are not in this image.


They can eat prey much larger then themselves. This gal below protected a crack at the bottom of my garage door. She caught this crane fly and dragged it up into her web. When she passed away, I counted 4 mature male giant house spiders, 3 male hobos, 2 unknown agelenids, and countless other bugs along with this crane fly. She was truly a beast of a predator.


They are fearless and bold in the face of danger. This E. ovata invaded the much smaller house spiders web, and tried to steal the meal. The house spider stood her ground and eventually chased the much larger E. ovata away with relentless attacks.

[mmfh]

Yes P. tepidariorum. Not very good with the latin names of true spiders yet. They have so much color variety it took a while for me to pin it down. Ty for letting me know that they can handle larger prey, catching those pinheads nearly made me pull my hair out lol. 13 egg sacks?! Well, those babies will be seeing the outside, might keep a few to replace the mother. Am I right in thinking I read that they only live a year?

[Ciphor]

Yes P. tepidariorum. Not very good with the latin names of true spiders yet. They have so much color variety it took a while for me to pin it down. Ty for letting me know that they can handle larger prey, catching those pinheads nearly made me pull my hair out lol. 13 egg sacks?! Well, those babies will be seeing the outside, might keep a few to replace the mother. Am I right in thinking I read that they only live a year?

They live about a year outdoors, yes. Captive I have had them go about 18 months maybe longer. They are incredibly easy to raise. If life span is a concern feed it light. I feed once every 2 weeks. Since she is gravid the more food you give her the more eggs she will lay, so if the next generation is your interest, feed her more. Slings develop into adult relatively fast.

[mmfh]

The first of the three eggsacks have hatched. They seem so calm just hanging out in mum's web cleaning themselves. I am curious..... How long can they all live in the same enclosure? If I throw a small cricket in will mum let them eat off of it? Or should I go get some fruit flies? Plus, lol they are all pretty like their mum, white abdomins with burgandy markings!

[Yoxigan]

I would catch a crane fly. Also, they enjoy eating large crickets.

[Ciphor]

The first of the three eggsacks have hatched. They seem so calm just hanging out in mum's web cleaning themselves. I am curious..... How long can they all live in the same enclosure? If I throw a small cricket in will mum let them eat off of it? Or should I go get some fruit flies? Plus, lol they are all pretty like their mum, white abdomins with burgandy markings!

I feed my sling cobwebbers flightless fruit flies. They will usually spend about 1-2 weeks in moms web, then slowly disperse, tho I've seen them leave the web in a few days after hatching too. They will usually start eating after a week. They are pretty tolerant of one another, but once they start getting bigger they start killing everything including other house spiders. I've heard they can live in pretty close proximity to one another, however I've personally never seen it. Mine are usually pretty territorial of other females and one ends up a meal. I've also heard males tend to share webs with females for long periods, I've never seen that either. This is a cosmopolitan spider, so may exhibit different behaviors in different regions.