A. diadematus care and watering

noxylophone

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
22
Hey everyone,

Very grateful to have found this forum—it appears to be a wealth of information and populated by knowledgable, articulate folks. Glad to be here. :)

I've been tip-toeing my way into the hobby gradually over the past year or so, mostly through the process of observing wild arachnids in my environment. I live in Seattle, WA, and we have quite a variety of interesting spiders, including the ubiquitous A. diadematus.

Seattle's orb weavers have fascinated me since I moved here a few years ago, and I've taken to keeping track of the webs around my house and watching the spiders grow as the year goes on. About a week ago, I left the house and ran smack into the web of a fairly large weaver who had built her web at eye level directly in front of my door. I was kind of surprised—most of the population seems to have died off by this point in the year, and we've had several below-freezing nights in the past few weeks. Given this, I decided to fetch a jar and capture this late-season spider.

I know that orb weavers tend to stay put once they've found a decent place to set up shop, so I decided to let her loose in the corner of my room in the hopes that she'd spin a web for me. After about four days of hanging out in the corner and occasionally putting out single lines of web, she finally spun!

[YOUTUBE]7Oh7_k6bvaI[/YOUTUBE]

And here she is:



Now, I'm aware that this species only tends to live for a year, though I've heard of some who've overwintered. I'm reasonably sure this specimen is female, and she doesn't seem to be gravid based on the size of her abdomen. That said, I'd like to keep her alive for as long as possible.

Given that, I have two questions:

1) How often ought I feed her? I fed her the day she built her web, since I figured she could probably use some food after losing the one I knocked down and spinning a new one, but I don't want to overfeed or underfeed her.

2) What's the best way to water her? I got a little misting bottle, but the water doesn't really seem to bead on the web readily—it's a pretty fine mist. What beads did remain she showed no interest in. Is this something I should do at night (to simulate dew accumulation?)

Right now she seems pretty happy; she's on her second web and hasn't moved from the corner she crawled to after I released her.

Thanks!

EDIT: Welp, after posting, the forum gave me some handy links that answered my questions. Funny how searching didn't turn up the info I was looking for. Oops. Anyway, enjoy the picture/video, and feel free to chime in if you want. :)
 
Last edited:

Smokehound714

Arachnoking
Joined
Mar 23, 2013
Messages
3,091
Lol glad you got that figured out. I like to put a small saturated wad of paper towel in the web.
 

noxylophone

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
22
A bit of an update:

She's been quite happy for the two months I've been keeping her, building a new web every few days and staying put in her corner. Can't see why anyone would keep an orb weaver in an enclosure; they're pretty sedentary and are wonderful at reducing airborne pests. She lives in the same part of the room as my cat's litter box, and I haven't seen many flies since she came home. :D

A couple of days ago she took her web down and retreated as far into the corner of the room as she could get. She's done this before, but only for a day or so. It's been three days. Today I decided to see if she was still alive, so I touched her gently, and she immediately dropped away behind my desk on an anchor line. I took a look back there, and I think she may have made an egg sac! Either that, or someone glued a big wad of cotton onto my wall. I'm kind of surprised, since she didn't look nearly as fat as some of the pictures I've seen of gravid A. diadematus. I know that spiders will make sacs even if they haven't mated—might this explain it?

Going to move my desk tomorrow and get pictures. Sadly that means that she may be not long for this world, but I certainly look forward to the possibility of A. diadematus slings in the near future. Does anyone have any tips for safely removing an egg sac that's been stuck to a wall or similar surface?
 
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