# moldy cellar spiders?



## Dave Marschang (Jul 11, 2015)

My brother has these in his basement by the hundreds, I know they are cellar spiders seen millions of em over the years. never seen em covered in mold/fungus/parasites?
	

		
			
		

		
	




anyone know whats goin on here?

Reactions: Like 1


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## The Snark (Jul 11, 2015)

Do you mean pholcids? Can you describe the circumstances? Habitat, humidity, temperature, etc?


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## Dave Marschang (Jul 11, 2015)

I cannot, not accurately. but let me try. its a dark dingy basement with a stone foundation. the house is a foreclosure and has been empty for years.the cellar door has been leaking for years, im gonna say humidity is 100% or close to it in the basement. he sent me pics of these two weeks ago, I told him it is just dead spiders covered in mold, he sent back " No they are NOT dead, they are all alive and there are hundreds of them!" I just got out there today to see the new house and went down to see the "furry white spiders". unfortunately his wife had bug bombed the basement the day before and they were all now completely dead. my wife wanted me to collect one to look at under the microscope but I decided not to bring them and their ailment into my house full of healthy spiders, just in case. There really was hundreds of them as is to be expected in any old basement. all sizes of them , again normal but, every single one was COMPLETELY covered. eyes, mouth, everything. the body and the joints of the legs were most heavily hit. I searched the entire basement trying to find any live and/or not covered cellar spiders. I could not. I did find shed exoskeletons that were completely clean, but no other cellar spiders that weren't covered. I then searched for other insects to see if they were affected. I did not find so much as a fly, roach, beetle or even a house spider. there were dead prey items in some of the webs that were NOT covered in the substance. and that is all I know as of now.


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## edgeofthefreak (Jul 11, 2015)

In my parking garage (I park on L2, under L1) there are hundreds of pholcidae webs in absolutely every corner of the place. Solid concrete, painted white, and every web is black. Covered in all aspects by ash, soot, carbon exhaust leftovers... Found a massive web, likely 2 feet of black webbing, and in the center, a tiny pholcid. Pinkie fingernail sizes.

Not another invertebrate creature in the garage. This is their kingdom. They seem to thrive where many other spiders really couldn't. I have one 'installed' in a terrarium plagued with fungus gnats. It set up shop in corner, and got very fat in the last few days.

So in my building, I have one in a very humid and clean tank, and several million in the dusty dry, heavily exhausted garage beneath my building.

Awesome spiders, they seem to survive a variety of conditions.


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## Dave Marschang (Jul 11, 2015)

edgeofthefreak said:


> In my parking garage (I park on L2, under L1) there are hundreds of pholcidae webs in absolutely every corner of the place. Solid concrete, painted white, and every web is black. Covered in all aspects by ash, soot, carbon exhaust leftovers... Found a massive web, likely 2 feet of black webbing, and in the center, a tiny pholcid. Pinkie fingernail sizes.
> 
> Not another invertebrate creature in the garage. This is their kingdom. They seem to thrive where many other spiders really couldn't. I have one 'installed' in a terrarium plagued with fungus gnats. It set up shop in corner, and got very fat in the last few days.
> 
> ...


I work in a chain factory and everything in there gets covered in black soot, cellar spiders by the millions in that place. BUT they all look healthy.

---------- Post added 07-11-2015 at 05:56 PM ----------

apparently there are outbreaks of this fungus all over at least the eastern half of the united states and in almost every incidence I found it was cellar spiders in OLD basements, one in the crawlspace under a mobile home. most websites claim there is no answer yet as to what's happening and one website claims the fungus is Torrubiella pulvinata .


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## edgeofthefreak (Jul 11, 2015)

Pictures of that fungus seem to match your description and picture from your friend. I'd be very interested in bringing some of these home, and isolating them, trying to maintain both the spider and fungus in one. I'd love to see any behavioural changes in the spiders, and if they eventually succumb to it, or keep on truckin'.


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## Dave Marschang (Jul 11, 2015)

according to the websites I found it does infact kill them, takes a while. seems like maybe they starve to death? hell I am getting nervous about going in my T room after being in that basement, but dif environments and it appears to only affect cellar spiders (but to be fair I searched for "moldy cellar spiders" so might be why no other species showed up. lol) anyway I wish I had thought to change my clothes and shower before feeding my T's when I got home. I am sure there is nothing to worry about but too late now.


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## edgeofthefreak (Jul 11, 2015)

When I Google for 'Torrubiella pulvinata', every page seems to suggest cellar spiders or dead spiders. Might be that pholcidae live in the right environment, and have the right physical properties to allow the fungus to grow. Other spiders may be in the area, but react negatively to the fungus, breaking the opportunity.

The pholcid in my Exo-terra is very bold, and chose an open area to make a web. So far, it doesn't even flinch when I open the doors for maintenance or misting. Might be that their boldness in nature lets the fungus creep on them, until it's too late?

Fascinating.


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## Dave Marschang (Jul 11, 2015)

I use to love watching the ones at work. when they thought I got too close they would start to bob up and down in their web. maybe to break up their outline? anyway these are in fact the very spiders that made me think "you know? I wouldn't mind having a  cellar spider or some sort of orb weaver as a pet."
 "well darn, true spiders don't live very long but, boring old tarantulas can live up to 20+ yrs?" 
"Hey look at that! there are so many kinds of tarantulas and they do a lot of non-boring stuff!"

And now 9 months later I have 55 tarantulas and cant get enough of them. all from watching cellar spiders bounce in their webs in the loading bays at work.

Reactions: Like 2


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## schmiggle (Jul 11, 2015)

Cordyceps infect lots of different arthropods, and I think they're pretty host specific.  There are ones that infect cicadas, ants, grasshoppers, etc.  I don't think that a cordyceps infecting a cellar spider could then infect a mygalomorph spider.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Dave Marschang (Jul 11, 2015)

schmiggle said:


> Cordyceps infect lots of different arthropods, and I think they're pretty host specific.  There are ones that infect cicadas, ants, grasshoppers, etc.  I don't think that a cordyceps infecting a cellar spider could then infect a mygalomorph spider.


atleast one website did mention that it was host specific (which helped me relax), but you know how reliable everything on the web is lol


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## The Snark (Jul 11, 2015)

Here you go: http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v21_n2/JoA_v21_p120.pdf


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