# Unidentified eggs that are starting to hatch



## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 7, 2013)

So, it's a bit chilly up here in Pennsylvania and we've started using the woodstove again. I was going to start it up, so I dug through the pile of wood inside for a good piece and found 5 or 6 eggsacs. Of course, I removed them and put them in a tupperware, and captured the other spiders I found on the pile and released them (either into house plants or onto our porch).


The egg sacs themselves were a decent size, I'd say around the size of a shelled almond, not really round either. They were attached to the logs with flat sheets of webbing, really securely. A few of them had small pieces of wood/leaves, and one had either a spider molt or a dead bug in it, it was too mashed up to tell. I wish I would have taken photos, they were all on 2 logs, and I removed them thinking that they wouldn't actually hatch. Well, I was wrong. Yesterday I looked in the container (which is on my kitchen counter, beside the two huge jars housing p. audax... normal people keep their spiders beside the coffee maker, right?) and the eggs looked "different". This is my first encounter with spider eggs since I've actually started liking them. They went from normal, spherical eggs to looking like they have a bit of white lumpiness on the top. The egg sacs were opened, mostly when I took them off the log, and some I carefully opened to look at. I did find one EWL yesterday, and I'm resisting the urge to poke around in there today. 

Does anyone have a clue what kind of spider it could be based on the eggsac, or have a way they could point me to figure it out? I'd like to at least give the babies a fighting chance, and I'd like to know what kind of spider hoard I'm going to be unleashing. The live spiders I pulled off the logs were varied, one was a Thiodina sylvana, a few "house spiders" and a few "ground spiders". All were tiny except the Thiodina, that was an adult. 

Thanks for any help!


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## korg (Dec 7, 2013)

Could you post some pictures?


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## Glubu (Dec 7, 2013)

Maybe _Tegenaria sp._?


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

I'll try to get a few pictures later today. They're so tiny, but there are a lot of them now, so hopefully at least one is in focus.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

*Photos... and they just keep hatching.*

I pretty much destroyed the egg sacs taking them off of the firewood, but it was a sheet-web covering/holding a round sac to the firewood. Most of the dirt and sticks were attached before I got to them. I did open a few of the sacs to see if they were viable looking eggs before I threw the whole mess into a tupperware. 

HOPEFULLY this helps with an ID.


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## paassatt (Dec 8, 2013)

I can't help as far as an ID is concerned, but if you want to keep them alive you should put some damp paper towels in there for them to drink from.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

Lower right corner of the last photo. =) I'm going to carefully move everyone that is still in the sac over to another tupperware so I can put the papertowel in a more central location for them. I've also been very lightly misting the lid before I put it back on, it's super dry in our house right now. But thank you. I'm still hoping someone can give me a tip in the right direction for ID. I sent photos to a local bug guy I know hoping that he has an idea.


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## paassatt (Dec 8, 2013)

RzezniksRunAway said:


> Lower right corner of the last photo. =) I'm going to carefully move everyone that is still in the sac over to another tupperware so I can put the papertowel in a more central location for them. I've also been very lightly misting the lid before I put it back on, it's super dry in our house right now. But thank you. I'm still hoping someone can give me a tip in the right direction for ID. I sent photos to a local bug guy I know hoping that he has an idea.


Ahh, okay. Thought that was just some discarded webbing from the sacs that you moved out of the way.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

Nope. I was unsure of the humidity level in there being OK for them with as much as I've opened it in the past few days, so I took the chance. I just looked again and I'm definitely going to move some of them, and go through with tweezers and get out the bad eggs. I spotted a tiny bit of fuzz growing on a cluster of dark brown/yellow eggs, so I need to get that taken care of.


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## catfishrod69 (Dec 8, 2013)

Your best bet would be to layer the entire bottom of the tupperware with damp paper towel, and put the slings directly on the paper towel.

Reactions: Like 1


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

Gonna go figure that out right now. I have some exoterra breeder boxes that might be easier to maneuver around in. I'll just rig a saran-wrap lid for now until I get to the store and buy a pair of pantyhose for the top. I'm not awesome at this being an adult female thing, I don't actually own a pair of pantyhose.


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## catfishrod69 (Dec 8, 2013)

Lol i understand that. I dont think i own any pantyhose either . 

You could get away with a small deli cup as well. Basically any container that has ventilation, but will hold humidity. Being they are 1st instars, they will need to drink to hydrate. So moist paper towel, or even coco fiber will work. Usually when my slings hit 1st instar i switch them to moist coco fiber, and have no problems.


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## The Snark (Dec 8, 2013)

That's the sort of thing I live for! Put on my most male macho clothes and mien then head for the store. Select an appropriate check out clerk, shy demure female or burly macho male, grab several choices of panty hose, plop them down at the cash register and ask in my most surly raspy voice, "Which one of these works best on cute little kids?"

Reactions: Like 1


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

I don't have the equipment to pull that off, I'd probably just come off as a strung out mother who doesn't know how to dress her children. Not that I look strung out, I'm just super disorganized and lack "normal" social skills. Or I'd just walk up and ask which ones they think bugs can't crawl through, and come off like I *might* have some sort of insect infestation in the area that pantyhose cover. That actually might be fun to do though.  I dug out our halloween costumes to see if I stashed any away, and the only thing I could find was one solitary thigh-high fishnet. THAT isn't even mine, it's my boyfriends from a cross-dressing charity event. I wish gas stations still sold those cheap nylons in the little plastic eggs. For now, I moved what I could over into another tupperware, put a damp papertowel at the bottom. I left the mess 'o eggsac in the original cage, cleaned out any clearly dead eggs/fuzzy crap, and put a damp papertowel in for the ones I couldn't move. They're so freaking tiny. Some of them are starting to get coloration that I can't catch on camera. Darker grey/blue/black cephalothorax, reddish abdomen.


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## The Snark (Dec 8, 2013)

I wouldn't be concerned with cleaning up the debris right now. You've got a much bigger project. You need to find a suitable habitat for the vast majority of them to get them through the winter and of course the nightmare of feeding them all and trying to prevent cannibalism. You're best bet is to find or create a habitat that includes active compost to keep the temperature up and to give them as much space between each other as you possibly can.

ROTFL! Do it! Get someone to take a video. With a little effort you could have a youtube goldmine!
"I don't have the equipment to pull that off, I'd probably just come off as a strung out mother who doesn't know how to dress her children. Not that I look strung out, I'm just super disorganized and lack "normal" social skills. Or I'd just walk up and ask which ones they think bugs can't crawl through, and come off like I *might* have some sort of insect infestation in the area that pantyhose cover."


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 8, 2013)

Haha, my boyfriend would record it, although I don't know if he could stop laughing long enough for me to pull it off. 

I'm thinking I can put them in a 10 gallon with some ABG-ish mix, covered with an inch or two of oak leaves, and put a ton of springtails and dwarf white isopods in there. Heat won't be an issue, I'll put them on top of my boa's enclosure. My dubia colony is thriving on the top of the hot side, so I'll temp gun the midpoint and go from there. I'll probably just cut a sheet of acrylic down for a lid, drill some holes and glue something over it. 

Wtf did I get myself into. I'm swimming in tanks full of things already, and I just added a new one.


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## The Snark (Dec 9, 2013)

Well they don't look like sparassids. At least not like any slings I've seen. But they could be lycos. If that's the case your 10 gallon job will end up with a half dozen or so after the cannibalism fest. It would be nice if you had web spinners there and you could end up with an intricate major colony. Time will tell. Their eating habits should be the first hint in revealing their make and model. Web spinners usually eat once, sometimes twice, to get enough protein to start spinning. Hunters will just keep on munching.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 9, 2013)

I got the suggestion of sow-bug killer or a type of sac spider, but I'm still waiting to see. The body shape is very sac-spider-ish. The more I stare and think, I'd put money on Trachelas tranquillus. There are tons of them around outside, specifically near the barn. Time will tell, not much difference in them today at all, they all seem to just be sitting up on their abdomens waving their legs around uselessly, although some are a little darker.


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## The Snark (Dec 10, 2013)

RzezniksRunAway said:


> Time will tell, not much difference in them today at all, they all seem to just be sitting up on their abdomens waving their legs around uselessly, although some are a little darker.


 That sounds like the beginning of a ballooning.


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## catfishrod69 (Dec 10, 2013)

It sure does. You do have a lid on that tub right? They will molt to 2nd instar and balloon all over the place before you even know they are gone. I had around 200 babies D. tenebrosus do that to me. Ended up having to shop vac them.. 





The Snark said:


> That sounds like the beginning of a ballooning.


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## The Snark (Dec 10, 2013)

Or just take them up to a high place with a breeze, put some upright sticks in the container and enjoy the show. Certain death for them though if it's the wrong time of year.

Reactions: Like 1


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 10, 2013)

Hmm. I do have a lid on the container, we have 3 cats and they're super, super nosy. It's a little too cold for me to allow them to go anywhere outside, and we just got a ton of snow today. I don't see any fresh evidence of molting in to container that I moved most of them over to. From what I've gathered most spiders start to feed at 2nd instar, but I really don't have a time frame for when that could happen. It seems like they're just so small that the time to molt from 1st to 2nd would be short. Also, once they're 2nd instar would be when they actually "hatch" from the eggsac normally, correct?


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## catfishrod69 (Dec 10, 2013)

I know what you mean about the cold, im one state over. Yeah they should start feeding at 2nd instar. Depending on the species, depends on how much cannibalizing and when they start doing that. It would also depend on the species, temps, etc to give a rough time frame between 1st and 2nd instar molting. Sometimes 1st instars will hatch out of the sac and stay in the mothers nursery web. Then once they hit 2nd instar, they will stay a short period and start ballooning away. Ballooning means they will toss up a strand of silk into the air, and a breeze will catch it, and carry them off. Believe me its weird to think of enough airflow in a bedroom to move them around, but somehow they manage to make it all over the room . Also some species of true spider cannot climb smooth plastic, like wolf spiders. However the slings can climb the crap out of it, and you have a heck of a time getting the lid open/closed due to hundreds of slings wanting to all go in the same direction, OUT! 





RzezniksRunAway said:


> Hmm. I do have a lid on the container, we have 3 cats and they're super, super nosy. It's a little too cold for me to allow them to go anywhere outside, and we just got a ton of snow today. I don't see any fresh evidence of molting in to container that I moved most of them over to. From what I've gathered most spiders start to feed at 2nd instar, but I really don't have a time frame for when that could happen. It seems like they're just so small that the time to molt from 1st to 2nd would be short. Also, once they're 2nd instar would be when they actually "hatch" from the eggsac normally, correct?


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 10, 2013)

I figured once the babies had solid legs they could climb the plastic, or glass, or anything. I think I'll set up their house later today so I have a bit more distance to fight them down when they try to escape. I'll just put their tupperware in their new tank and let them get out of it on their own. I'm overly familiar with ballooning, it's about the only thing about them that still gives me the creeps. We had a fairly large population of "house spiders" living on our porch this year, and since we were keeping our small garden organic, we encouraged them to stay. It got fairly out of control, and at one point there was at least 1 per square foot, and I was leaving our porch light on all night to attract food for them. The back yard was a mine field of webs to walk through, but we had very minimal bug damage to our food. 

I'm so impatient, I just keep looking through the sides of the tupperware at them. I want to know what they are, now. =) It'll also be good to get them set up in their new cage soon, as I haven't been sealing the lid of the tupperware. I'm afraid that the force of opening it from fully sealed will explode their little bodies.


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## catfishrod69 (Dec 10, 2013)

Well atleast your veggies were supervised all hours of the night . It might be hard to say what they are until they are atleast juveniles. Being the way the sac looked i would guess they would have to be some sort of ground spider, and not a cobweb.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 13, 2013)

*New pictures!*

Some of them can actually walk today! 





I let this little dude climb onto a toothpick so I could get a picture. He actually dropped a web from the toothpick to the countertop and took off. It was quite the adventure trying to catch him again because he is so little. He didn't want to get onto the toothpick again, so I ended up letting him climb onto my fingernail and held him over the bin until he webbed down.

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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 15, 2013)

*MORE! Updated photos.*

Dorsal view. This little dude was super fast, trying to get into every little crevice on my hands. 




Same little one, a view of his eyes. Even through jewelers loupes I can't tell whats going on with eye arrangement. I might try to put one under a microscope tomorrow, there are a few dead in the one container that I might be able to see. 



There are tons of these little groups all over both of the tupperware. They average around 20 spiders in each group, sometimes double that. 



They are webbing now, and most of it is just a cluster of unrelated threads with no rhyme or reason. 



Their spinnerettes are large-ish, but I'm not sure what to expect from a baby vs an adult of a species. No real pattern that's visible, but you can see on the closeup of the dorsal that there's something going on there. They're also a bit jumpy, one actually jumped away from the toothpick I was trying to get it to climb onto. I also know that a few fed, their abdomens are huge compared to their siblings. I'm expecting some cannibalism, and I'm actually going to allow it for now to thin out the numbers. I was debating feeding a few off to some hatchling Mourning Geckos, but without knowing what they are I'm a little leary of doing that.


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## akarikuragi (Dec 15, 2013)

This is really interesting. :3 They are super cute! So tiny! Thanks for updating, can't wait to see what they turn out to be.


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## The Snark (Dec 16, 2013)

That webbing appears to be thwarted ballooning efforts.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 16, 2013)

I was thinking that's what it might have been, they do make a good attempt to get away from me when I try to move them. I'm moving them into containers later today. I ended up settling on large deli containers, and I'm going to cut holes and seal it off with coffee filters. I'm going to do my best to count them when I move them into each container to get an idea of just how many I have. They don't seem to be able to climb the sides of the tupperware that I have them in, no matter how hard they try. I know if I leave the lid off, they'll all escape, but it's comforting knowing that they're not going to all be around the lid when I open it. I'll update again when I have them in their new houses. =)


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 18, 2013)

*Well, we're getting slightly closer to an ID... kind of. It's still a ground or a sac spider.*

I've been secretly holding on to the hope that they'd magically change into a whole bunch of adorable jumping spiders, but no such luck. 

The photos are a bit blurry today, they gained a whole lot of speed recently. I can't even keep one on a toothpick without it taking off. I also can't get a good shot of palps or eye arrangement. I didn't get to move them into their new cages yet. My two year old niece came over to the house yesterday and was looking at them, and kept telling me that they were cute. She got so excited when they started crawling (escaping her, because she was yelling cute at them). Her mother and father aren't exactly cool with spiders, so it's also amusing to watch them try to support her curiosity while being totally creeped out.

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## Smokehound714 (Dec 18, 2013)

These appear to be agelenopsis spiderlings.  Note the long spinnerets.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 18, 2013)

Yes! I just found a diagram of eye arrangement as well, and that looks closer to what they have than anything else. There are also a ton of Agelenopsis in my back yard, tricking me into chasing down imaginary wolf spiders. I also found a few photos of verified egg sacs that look identical to mine. That also makes a little more sense with the slight patterning I can see, if it turns out to be A. pennsylvanica. They just look so shiny right now, but then this is the first time I'm raising spiderlings, so this is all new. =)


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## Smokehound714 (Dec 18, 2013)

As much as I love this genus, I must say they're a total pain if you're searching for sosippus wolves.  I've got a spot that has both, and because of the similarity of their webs, including the large funnel, it can be nerve-wracking.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 19, 2013)

I'm a wolf repellant. I have a whopping ONE on my list of caught wolves in the past year. I brought him in the house, ID'd and returned to the wood pile since it was a larger male. I spent way more time than I should have trying to coax a really nice looking female out from my porch over the summer, but she wasn't having any part of it.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 23, 2013)

*Turn the ceiling fans OFF before trying to move a ton of spiderlings. =(*

I finally got the chance to move them today. Left the ceiling fan on in the kitchen, and as soon as they realized that the lid was off they all started trying to float off. I had to hold the container upside down with one hand, while using a toothpick to wind up webs to drop into the containers, all while moving the upside down container around trying to catch the escapees. There were a few casualties, but I managed to split them into 4 containers that are twice the size of what they were in. I also found out that they want me dead, so very very dead, LOL. I tried to get a photo of the one attempting to kill my finger, but he took off before the camera caught him. He was making one heck of an attempt to bite me, and it was kind of adorable. 

The one who tried so hard to get me. 



The 2nd tub. This was the one that I originally had the eggsacs in, then I moved everything I could into a second container. This one contains about half as many as the other container. The new containers aren't very clear, so it's going to be hard to get good shots through them. I have other enclosures read for them once they get a bit bigger, and eat themselves down a bit. Letting them cannibalize each other is the plan for now, there are just way too many.


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## Alokin (Dec 25, 2013)

They loook adorable...i was gona say that they cant be wolf spiders....cous of the eyes..but i gues you figuered that out  Anyway..they are adorable.....i cant wait to see them grow


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## akarikuragi (Dec 25, 2013)

They are so cute!


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## The Snark (Dec 25, 2013)

RzezniksRunAway said:


> I finally got the chance to move them today. Left the ceiling fan on in the kitchen, and as soon as they realized that the lid was off they all started trying to float off. I had to hold the container upside down with one hand, while using a toothpick to wind up webs to drop into the containers, all while moving the upside down container around trying to catch the escapees.


I want a video of that!


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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 25, 2013)

Haha, NO WAY. I'm not trying to move them again until they're bigger. I found close to two dozen roaming around my kitchen throughout that evening, I can't imagine how many I *didn't* find. Thank something they're not anything dangerous. My boyfriend was looking into the containers I put them in and he just kept laughing at how many there are. I'm thinking it's his way of coping with the fact there are hundreds of spiders on our dresser in the bedroom. I had to move the containers in there because the cats are getting way too nosy, and the bedroom is an absolutely no cat zone, because cats are jerks.

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## RzezniksRunAway (Dec 31, 2013)

*A few shots from today*

There's evidence of molting into 3rd instar in the containers, but there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between any of them other than a bit of size. They're webbing up the containers really well, also. Each container pretty much has one large funnel-ish web around the inside, from top to substrate. Lots of cannibalism going on, lots of running around investigating each other, and just generally a lot of everything. The shots have a bit of a haze to them from the containers. They're deli containers from a local grocery store, and while they are clear, they do have that weird opacity thing going on.

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## Smokehound714 (Jan 1, 2014)

Probably the easiest slings you could care for..  they're insane killing machines, even at 2i..  Mine behave just like adults; launching dramatic volleys of bites over and over, from all angles, so vicious!

   Imagine a tarantula that attacks like that O_O


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## RzezniksRunAway (Jan 1, 2014)

I can't even keep track of how many are attacking another one. I watched one of the containers for about 15 minutes yesterday and the entire time they were moving, stalking, and killing. I know the numbers are going down, but it still looks like SO many of them.


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## Alokin (Jan 6, 2014)

Post some new photos please  I want to see more


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## RzezniksRunAway (Jan 8, 2014)

*More photos taken today while re-housing.*

I used the same containers they were in. I dumped each container out into an old, giant pyrex bowl, which worked out really well because they couldn't climb the sides. 2 of the containers got cocofiber and random sticks. 





I had sphagnum in the containers originally, but they really needed cleaned out. I picked through the moss to get as many moving babies as possible, and split the remaining moss between 2 containers. I know there are still a bunch hiding in the moss in both, and some that looked dead but could have been going into molt. I put around 50 actively moving ones in the containers with dirt/sticks.


This little guy didn't have a care in the world that I was moving this paper towel around and causing a giant earthquake, he just kept cleaning himself. 



Little one on my thumb.


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## RzezniksRunAway (Jan 8, 2014)

*More updates from today*

You can see that they're getting fur! 




And this little oddball. I just used this bowl to make cookies yesterday, so I washed it quickly and dried it before using it for the spiders. I must have missed some, and I found this little guy just chilling on a drop of congealed sugary stuffs. I couldn't tell if he was trying to eat it or not, he was just kind of standing awkwardly over it.

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## RzezniksRunAway (Jan 23, 2014)

*New photos of the little ones*

Cleaned out their containers today, apparently the dried sticks from my back yard are some sort of amaranth and germinate super fast, the bottoms of the containers were almost covered in sprouts. There are probably about 30 left. I see slight morphological differences between the larger ones, as well as color differences. I'm wondering if I have 2 different species, the egg sacs were from a few different pieces of wood. Either way, they're doing good. Defensive and FAST. So fast. I'm going to throw some dwarf white isopods in the container later, my colony is finally taking off so I have some to spare. =)


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## Smokehound714 (Jan 24, 2014)

nectar actually happens to be food for many spider species in the wild.  They will also drink from fallen overripe fruit if thirsty.  Some could be considered omnivores in the sense that they inadvertently ingest large quantities of pollen and pistils stuck to their webs.  Some spiders, like sac spiders, and salticidae drink copious amounts of nectar and could be obtaining a major portion of their dietary nutrition this way.  Real nectar is full of vitamins and minerals.  Im considering growing oxalis in some of my enclosures to provide nectar.  (Not to mention awesome looking, ahaha)

  These are really cool spiders. sorry to threadjack, but here's a fat agelenopsis aperta "prairie" morph: 







   She's actually bigger than the measurement looks, because she's a half-cm above the ruler.  That's how big yours should get with a good diet


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## RzezniksRunAway (Jan 25, 2014)

I have seen a few things about certain species eating nectar, I just never expected that little one to be eating watered down chocolate chip cookie dough.  I have plenty of yellow wood sorrel around here, maybe I'll add that to jumper cages once it gets warm and I can collect some. Then I can eat it when it needs clipped. 

I'd definitely be happy with that size, they're definitely well fed right now. I just have to keep them that way now that they've thinned their numbers down a bit. I really like the coloring on the prairie, my local ones are all dark and barely patterned.


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