Argiope aurantia egg sac

[jreidsma]

Hi everyone

Just got back from camping yesterday And of course I came back with some stuff One of them was a black and yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia) that was clearly pregnant. There was no WiFi there so I figured "hey, I will quickly look it up once I get the chance when I get home, she shouldn't have the egg sac right away right?" well I was wrong. The first day we got back and there it is, a large egg sac, lol

I read online that the babies stay in the egg sac during the winter and hatch out in the fall. So should I put the egg sac on my porch? The bad thing is the Michigan winters here are terrible, last year half of it felt like spring while the other half was almost 0 degrees F.

I was thinking that a safer way to do it would be to put them in the fridge when it gets cold outside, and take them out when it warms up outside?

I would rather not have them hatch out when it is cold outside, and I wouldn't be able to care for a thousand little spiderlings I was going to release most of them outside but maybe keep a couple depending on how big they are when they hatch.

Or maybe I could do a trade with someone for it

 

[Ciphor]

Hi everyone

Just got back from camping yesterday And of course I came back with some stuff One of them was a black and yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia) that was clearly pregnant. There was no WiFi there so I figured "hey, I will quickly look it up once I get the chance when I get home, she shouldn't have the egg sac right away right?" well I was wrong. The first day we got back and there it is, a large egg sac, lol

I read online that the babies stay in the egg sac during the winter and hatch out in the fall. So should I put the egg sac on my porch? The bad thing is the Michigan winters here are terrible, last year half of it felt like spring while the other half was almost 0 degrees F.

I was thinking that a safer way to do it would be to put them in the fridge when it gets cold outside, and take them out when it warms up outside?

I would rather not have them hatch out when it is cold outside, and I wouldn't be able to care for a thousand little spiderlings I was going to release most of them outside but maybe keep a couple depending on how big they are when they hatch.

Or maybe I could do a trade with someone for it

I would simply put it outside if you can. I believe it needs to be suspended to hatch, but might hatch if you set it somewhere safe (safe from ants and other predators). If you keep it inside it may hatch early, but is not guaranteed. If you keep it in the fridge they will die from the constant frozen frigged air in my opinion.

 

[jreidsma]

I will just set it outside once it starts getting cooler then, so they can stay in the sac during the winter.

 

[jreidsma]

I found the momma doing something to the web a couple nights ago, and that morning afterwards the egg sac was on the ground and she didn't even care. Could she have aborted it? Maybe it is a dud and she knows? Or maybe she is just a bad mommy

 

[John Apple]

no....when they make a sac...if they dont have enough reserves they die...if they have enough reserves they will migrate a short distance and start a new web....seen this happen many years over.....since your spider could not migrate to a new local she probably looked at the sac as web trash and discarded it like a leaf or dead bug stuck in the web.....the sac will still hatch

 

[jreidsma]

Hmm... would make sense. I never thought about it that way.

I know different spiders outside will keep the egg sacs together and have multiple. So I didn't know if it would be different with this spider.