First spider... kind of a special case.

[Malakyoma]

Hey guys. So this is a long story, I hope you'll bear with me.

My entire life I've been deathly afraid of spiders. Like heart-stoppingly terrified. I've always heard the "its just a spider", and "face your fear" arguments from friends and family. Today I decided I'm going to try and face my fear.

I just caught a spider that was chilling in the corner where two walls and ceiling meet. I have no idea what species it is. It has a very small body, and very long hair-thin legs. Maybe an inch or two wide. I live in Southern Ontario if that gives anyone a clue to i.d., but I would need a macro lens to get a good i.d. shot and I am NOT taking her out yet (I'm not even sure she's a she but I'll just call her a she).

So I want to make sure I'm caring for her right so I came here. I caught her in a cup I used to use for my ghost mantis, who actually had to downgrade in size since she wasn't eating. I don't know the size, but it was for a peeled, cored, whole pineapple. Thats roughly how big it is. I dumped a few melanos in there very stealthily using a straw and a tiny sponge-plugged hole. She ate right away, like she hadnt laid ANY web at all but she pounced on this one fruit fly. It was really intriguing to watch her do it actually. Her legs are long enough she was able to stand over the fruit fly and spin her web around it even as it tried to run away. Eventually it fell from the ceiling they were fighting on and caught midair then she just wrapped it in web and took a few bites. I think she's eating it right now but I have no way to be sure. very neat to watch though.

Some questions:

How much will she eat a week? How often should I feed her?

Does she need misting like mantids? If so how often?

Can I expect an egg-sac since she's "wild"-caught? What should I do with it if she lays? If I keep them how should I house them?

How long can I expect her to live? How do I tell when she's getting old?

Does she need anything in the enclosure other than the popsicle stick framework that was already in place?

Thanks for your time.

 

[lancaster1313]

She sounds like maybe she is a sort of cellar or cobweb spider. Is her abdomen round or elongated?

 

[Malakyoma]

Very round. almost spherical

 

[Malakyoma]

Wait, now that she's gorged herself on this one melano, it still looks round, but where it tapers off into the web-point-thing it makes it longer. Not spherical.

 

[hierodula]

YAY!!!!!! you got over your fear of spiders!!!! As likebugs said, i think you have a cellar spider. You need to provide a shelf of somesort so she can make her web. Have fun

 

[Malakyoma]

YAY!!!!!! you got over your fear of spiders!!!! As likebugs said, i think you have a cellar spider. You need to provide a shelf of somesort so she can make her web. Have fun

A shelf? I have crisscrossing popsicle sticks. I'll snap some pics from outside the cup and you can tell me if its alright.

 

[Malakyoma]

 

[lancaster1313]

That looks fine.

I think that you chose the least frightening spider to start with. It may be a Pholcid.

With those legs, they are really good at wrapping and disabling prey without being touched by it.

 

[Malakyoma]

That looks fine.

I think that you chose the least frightening spider to start with. It may be a Pholcid.

With those legs, they are really good at wrapping and disabling prey without being touched by it.

Yeah I saw that when I fed her a fruit fly. She stood above it and wrapped it up while the fly tried to run away

 

[hierodula]

Yeah I saw that when I fed her a fruit fly. She stood above it and wrapped it up while the fly tried to run away

You should also try jumpers. They are so adorable and smart. They also have really awesome personalities.

 

[lancaster1313]

I love jumping spiders and agree that they are great pets. Mine takes small mealworms and it looks like she has a cigar. lol

The jumping might be frightening until one gets used to how the spider behaves.

I was never afraid of jumpers. The spiders that teleport are the ones that used to frighten me half to death.

I broke my fear with Selenopidae. Now, I really want a few Heteropoda.

 

[hierodula]

Ya me too. Those huntsman are awesome! Ive been lately keeping some wolf spiders. They are crazy fast!

 

[Ranitomeya]

I have spiders all over my room sometimes, depending on how many fruit flies get away from me... I do try to keep the population under control and periodically remove them because they can create quite a mess if you let them stay around. I'm not very fond of the ones that wander around and end up crawling on me while I sleep, so those are usually the first to get evicted if I see them. The ones with webs need to be periodically cleaned up after or removed as they like to leave piles of dead prey around--these dried carcasses can cause allergic reactions in people who are sensitive to chitin and arthropod proteins. They'll also leave stains on the walls since their fecal matter is mostly ejected in moist droplets. At one point I entertained the idea of having one of those golden orbweavers hanging on a frame in my room, but I thought better of it once I thought about the it might leave below it. Be aware that your Pholcid might decide to make an egg sac--it looks female and very well-fed. If they've mated, they'll gorge themselves until they have enough body mass to produce a loosely spun egg sac into which they'll lay fairly large, tinted eggs. It won't feed as long as it's holding its egg sac, but if you remove it, it will begin feeding again until it's able to make a new one. I once took care of a black widow that would always eat a medium-sized hissing cockroach before laying an egg sac that I'd end up removing--I didn't want hundreds of black widows in my room!

It's good to try to get over your feed of spiders, but don't lose your respect for them--especially if the medically significant sort. I'd consider Pholcids one of the most harmless of household spiders, a very good choice to start with. They can get to a decent size and will grow even after becoming mature and yours looks like it can still grow quite a bit.

 

[Malakyoma]

I have spiders all over my room sometimes, depending on how many fruit flies get away from me... I do try to keep the population under control and periodically remove them because they can create quite a mess if you let them stay around. I'm not very fond of the ones that wander around and end up crawling on me while I sleep, so those are usually the first to get evicted if I see them. The ones with webs need to be periodically cleaned up after or removed as they like to leave piles of dead prey around--these dried carcasses can cause allergic reactions in people who are sensitive to chitin and arthropod proteins. They'll also leave stains on the walls since their fecal matter is mostly ejected in moist droplets. At one point I entertained the idea of having one of those golden orbweavers hanging on a frame in my room, but I thought better of it once I thought about the it might leave below it. Be aware that your Pholcid might decide to make an egg sac--it looks female and very well-fed. If they've mated, they'll gorge themselves until they have enough body mass to produce a loosely spun egg sac into which they'll lay fairly large, tinted eggs. It won't feed as long as it's holding its egg sac, but if you remove it, it will begin feeding again until it's able to make a new one. I once took care of a black widow that would always eat a medium-sized hissing cockroach before laying an egg sac that I'd end up removing--I didn't want hundreds of black widows in my room!

It's good to try to get over your feed of spiders, but don't lose your respect for them--especially if the medically significant sort. I'd consider Pholcids one of the most harmless of household spiders, a very good choice to start with. They can get to a decent size and will grow even after becoming mature and yours looks like it can still grow quite a bit.

She looks well fed because she ate a melano before this shot she was really thin before but after she ate it she was nice and fat. How did you get rid of the black widow eggs?

As for losing respect for the dangerous kind, I'm in southern Ontario. There aren't any spiders here that can hurt/kill people. No Black Widows, no Wolf spiders, no Brown recluse, nothing.

Some of my questions in the original post are still unanswered I still feel like I don't know how to take care of it.

 

[Ranitomeya]

How much will she eat a week? How often should I feed her?

You can feed her once a week but she can probably go for longer than that. I'd just feed her until she wraps her food up for storage or ignores prey.

Does she need misting like mantids? If so how often?

She shouldn't need misting. They get moist of their moisture from their food but can drink from droplets accumulated on their webbing. Depending on how dry your home is, you might want to mist maybe once a week if you're worried--but I've never observed any of the various Pholcids around my house requiring sources of water aside from captured prey and I've never seen a mismolted Pholcid.

Can I expect an egg-sac since she's "wild"-caught? What should I do with it if she lays? If I keep them how should I house them?

If she lays eggs, they'll do fine in the same conditions she's able to survive in. Spiders that carry their egg sacs will move to locations that are best suited for incubation. They'll often move to a warmer and more humid part of their enclosure in order to keep the eggs from drying out and to incubate them at a warmer temperature.

How long can I expect her to live? How do I tell when she's getting old?

I'm not sure how long they live but I'm not sure signs of aging would be the same for them as for insects--most insects molt into adulthood and cease molting, but most arachnids will continue to grow even once they've matured. The regular wear and tear you'd expect on an adult insect would not be present on an arachnid that can molt and regenerate the damage. Because our households tend not to be stable in terms of moisture and prey level and there's also the matter of household chemicals, they're usually not reported to live long, but I'm sure they can at least survive for more than a year if they can obtain prey that hasn't been starved and dehydrated from being trapped indoors without food and water for days.

Does she need anything in the enclosure other than the popsicle stick framework that was already in place?

They require surprisingly little--all they need is some sort of stable, non-moving structure onto which they can place a web--the ones around the house usually only need a corner of a room to make a web, and a few of their webs are only attached to two walls with no third surface like the ceiling.

I hope that helps. The black widow liked to stay near the egg sac and would actually move it around its web by attaching new silk and cutting old silk. When I decided it was time to remove it, I'd do so with a pair of long tweezers. I'd carefully snap the main lines of silk supporting the egg sac before pulling it off the webbing. As for dangerous spiders, you have to remember that all of them have venom, even if many of them are either incapable or poorly capable of delivering it into your skin. Venom is not always well-understood and the effect on an individual is not necessarily always the same. You could always find out that you're sensitive towards a venom that's otherwise considered harmless.

It's more than possible to be bitten by a spider that is otherwise considered unlikely to deliver a bite. I've once been bitten by a very unhappy red back jumping spider that I caught, and though at the time it was barely able to puncture my skin, the venom did end up working its way through the layers of my skin and caused a little bit of stinging pain at the site of the bite that lasted a couple of hours.

 

[Malakyoma]

You can see from the pictures that I used standard window screen for ventilation in the cup. Will baby spiders get through that? Or are they born pretty large? Melano's can, but sometimes dont, fit through the holes in the screen, but hydei cant.

 

[Ranitomeya]

They're born pretty large in comparison to their egg size, but it's still fairly small. It's possible they might slip through, but unlikely because of their long legs. If hydei cannot escape, I wouldn't be too worried.

 

[Malakyoma]

They're born pretty large in comparison to their egg size, but it's still fairly small. It's possible they might slip through, but unlikely because of their long legs. If hydei cannot escape, I wouldn't be too worried.

Alright so if she lays, and I leave it in there, and let it hatch, they should be ok? How would having so many spiders in a small area affect things?

 

[Ranitomeya]

Even though I've observed them to be somewhat tolerant of each other--it's not uncommon to find more than one spider in a web--they will very likely cannibalize one another in such a small container.