Another false L. mactans sac?

[Anonymity82]

I looked but I can't find where I posted last time. I got this nice young female widow back in April. She molted within a month or two. My concept of time is terrible these days but she laid an egg sac no more than two months ago. I assumed it was false seeing how I didn't breed her and even though they're prevalent in my area I've never seen any here. I live in new development PLUS, my garage is full of false widows. So they pretty much own the house now. I did find a male widow just a few doors down but I suspected it hitched a ride on our car (this is where I found it making a web, on the side mirrors).

I read it was rare for them to lay false egg sacs. How rare is it for them to lay TWO false egg sacs?

I should make this clear, she did lay another sac. I'm going to see where this one goes.

 

[buthus]

hold the sacs up to light and look for substance within. Eggs that fail will be a little ball or they may be some unfertilized 'goo'. Ive had a few produce sacs ...seemingly just to go thru the motions ...these sacs end up wanky lookin and usually unfinished.
Most of my 'dud' sacs came from old widows on the edge of mortality. Some produced multiple duds.
Ive had widows that have mated and still produced duds. Some even developed but not all the way. Others are mostly duds but with a few spiderlings developing. My lowest sling count from a sac was 1. Strangest have been sacs from certain species that Ive had to cut open and force hatch the little buggers.

 

[Anonymity82]

Interesting!

She's pretty young as I found her in April before she was even mature. She molted so she hasn't been formally bred since then. It's not entirely impossible but highly unlikely that a male actually got in and mated with her. Her first sac I ripped open and it was full of fully formed, yet pretty hard eggs. The sac is tear dropped looking. The first one was much about a third larger than this one. Still, this one is yellow, fully in tact. I'm going to let it sit for a week or so and then pull it to get a look at it.

 

[Anonymity82]

I'm going to check this out tomorrow. I removed the sac and then placed it on her web and she replaced it. She's being pretty protective of it too. I watched her walking it around her web and then replacing it. Very interesting if this turns out to be a viable sack.

 

[Anonymity82]

I held it up to the light and can't really see too much in there. There's definitely a mass but it's really hard to see and definitely not dark. It's kind of flat looking (the mass, not the sac). It's been about 2 weeks since she laid it.

 

[Widowman10]

i've found that to be a sign of a bad sac- when you can see that the mass does not fill the sac, but is all clumped together at the bottom.

 

[Anonymity82]

Okay thanks. I guess I'll let her have it a little while longer. She seems fond of it!

 

[Anonymity82]

I removed the sac and the eggs were soft. They weren't rotting but I don't know if this means anything. It's just weird that I found a male outside my house before this started happening.

She laid another sac! I understand this is probably a false sac but I'm going to wait longer this time and see if the eggs darken.

 

[buthus]

I removed the sac and the eggs were soft. They weren't rotting but I don't know if this means anything. It's just weird that I found a male outside my house before this started happening.

She laid another sac! I understand this is probably a false sac but I'm going to wait longer this time and see if the eggs darken.

Sac laying like that... shes gotta be gravid.
Keep that sac and now try n mate her 'again'.

 

[Anonymity82]

Haha, I didn't try to mate her the first time!!

She molted last April or May. I haven't mated her!