Help with caring for Brown Widows

[Zem]

The Brown Widow population around my apartment complex has exploded recently (I count nearly a dozen juveniles and adults on my tiny porch alone). I caught a few a couple months ago and have been keeping them in jars with plenty of holes in the top for ventilation. I used craft pipe cleaners for the structure and coconut husk for the base. I have also been feeding them small crickets every 1 to 2 weeks. The interior of my apartment is generally kept at around 70F. I've also lightly misted the side of the jar every couple weeks for a little humidity and water. I followed all the advice I could find on here but came home today to find one of my Widows had died. Any insight as to what I could have done wrong? It's abdomen was large from a feeding a couple days ago but not overly so. It had plenty of structure to build on and had created a large solid web in the container. My other juvenile of the same size recently molted while the one that had died had not. I would like to try and raise a few from juveniles to full adulthood so any feedback would be appreciated. I could catch some full grown ones but I don't want to mess with fertile egg sacks. These are really pretty spiders when fully grown and I don't feel bad about removing them from the wild considering they are invasive. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[pannaking22]

Too much humidity would be my guess. Substrate isn't really necessary for geo (or any Latro for that matter), though some people like the aesthetics of it. I have noticed that geos will sometimes randomly die in captivity and I'm not really sure why. I had that happen a couple times and your dead individual looks quite healthy. It may just be one of those mysterious things that happens to widows from time to time.

 

[Zem]

Too much humidity would be my guess. Substrate isn't really necessary for geo (or any Latro for that matter), though some people like the aesthetics of it.

I had a bunch if substrate left over from my T's enclosure so I figured I might as well put it to use. It's mostly dry without much added water. They seem to like to use bits of husk as ancor points when contructing their webs as well. I'll scale back misting the inside of the enclosure to about once a month at most and see if that helps.

 

[atraxrobustus]

I've found that the Lactodactus are extremely sensitive to chemical residues (mainly because they are a target for the insecticides and many of them are born with significant levels of exposure straight from the egg sac), particularly around the time of a molt. I find that the best containers to study this particular genius is to place a twig in a BPA-free drinking water bottle with about an inch of substrate to keep the stick in place. Also, as this is a web-based species, they need a small amount of space to build a web.

 

[pannaking22]

I've found that the Lactodactus are extremely sensitive to chemical residues (mainly because they are a target for the insecticides and many of them are born with significant levels of exposure straight from the egg sac), particularly around the time of a molt. I find that the best containers to study this particular genius is to place a twig in a BPA-free drinking water bottle with about an inch of substrate to keep the stick in place. Also, as this is a web-based species, they need a small amount of space to build a web.

Think there could be something on the pipe cleaner?

 

[Zem]

I think the humidity is probably it. While cleaning the jar I found a bit of white mold growing on a dead cricket that I missed when I was cleaning it out. I removed the coconut husk and baked it in the oven for an hour and a half to dry it out and hopefully kill any mold. I removed the living widow from the jar it was in and baked it's coconut husk too and cleaned out the enclosure. Another possinility is that they have been spraying to get rid of the widows around my apartment (it's not working) and I might have picked one up that had been exposed to the insecticide. I went out last night and grabbed another Widow off my porch to replace the one that died. I assumed it was a female given the roundness and size of the abdomen but now that I look closer it seems like it might be a really fat male. It appears to have round looking pedipalps that the females I caught did not. I might release the male and find another female as I'm not really looking to breed them.

Picture 1 is what I think is the male and picture 2 is the remaining female.

 

[atraxrobustus]

Think there could be something on the pipe cleaner?

It's well possible in theory, as there's no telling what goes on during the manufacturing process. Thats why I prefer to go natural, personally. The problem is that because most (if not all) spiders absorb water from the air through their exoskeleton, it becomes that they're not as chemically resistant as one would expect from appearance.

 

[darkness975]

I could catch some full grown ones but I don't want to mess with fertile egg sacks.

This is a lot coming from someone like me who loves invertebrates, but if I lived in an area where they were I would kill all I found and their egg sacks too given their invasive status and their rapid overtaking of our native Latrodectus spp.

That being said, in the case of your specimen's death, it could have been the humidity or it could have been chemical exposure. It could have even been something that was introduced from a feeder.
I am not sure how much air flow Latrodectus require but I suppose that is also a possible factor.


I realize you had it for a couple of months, but I never discredit the possibility of a slow death due to past chemical exposure, especially in a wild caught specimen.

 

[sekmet022]

I too kill them whenever i see them. Despite being a spider lover, these things are all over the place in california and my area has a particularly bad infestation of them. Maybe if i release enough p. audax into the area, they'll help thin out the darn things. xD

 

[darkness975]

Maybe if i release enough p. audax into the area, they'll help thin out the darn things.

Not likely. They would have a tough time breaking through all that webbing.

 

[Kumo Punch]

Living in So Cal we have them everywhere. I've kept a few females in rinsed out SOLO TP10D plastic cups with some twigs for anchor points. some have laid egg sacks so I just pull them and flush them down the toilet. They produce multiple sacs with one breeding. I fed flys, mealies, roaches. Pretty much whatever I have on hand and they get most of there moisture from the food item. These have truly taken over here and I rarely see any black widows.

 

[pannaking22]

Maybe if i release enough p. audax into the area, they'll help thin out the darn things. xD

Try pholcids or maybe scytodids. They're pretty well documented to eat widows. Don't eat the sacs but they'll at least take care of the adults.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Maybe if i release enough p. audax into the area, they'll help thin out the darn things. xD

Maybe you should release some Portia spiders
Sure maybe they'll kill off every native spider they come across but at least you'll have no more brown widows