Baby Orb Weaver

[LiseeLou]

Hello all!
I found this baby in my house today, so cute! (Pin for scale) My guess at species is araneus gemmoides or similar based on adults I’ve seen around here.
I was surprised because it is almost winter here, Oregon USA, and it will get very cold in just 1 month. We have lots of these outside that I’m sure are laying their eggs now. I’m not sure how this baby hatched so early/late. Maybe one laid it’s eggs indoors so they didn’t do their winter stasis thing?
Anyways, I know these don’t usually thrive in captivity, but I also feel like this is a unique opportunity to keep an orb weaver. It’s normal life cycle is already shot, so I might as well interfere more to give it a decent shot at life? Plus it’s tiny size makes me wonder if it will be able to web in a smaller enclosure (only problem is generating airflow…suggestions?)

Any thoughts on the best way to care for it? (I’d prefer not to set it loose in my house, plus the sheer amount of spiders I have found in my home make me pretty certain it’d be eaten very quickly).

 

[Vale Shady]

with it's size I would feed it fruit flies and as long as it has a good amount of ventilation (I'm assuming your plan is to keep it in that jar) airflow shouldn't be a big deal. Offer it food every one to three days I guess (I have a Phidippus Audax I got about a week ago, that's how often I try to feed him) with it's size. I don't know a whole lot about this particular species of orb weaver (if it was a Darwin's bark spider I would've been more helpful).

 

[Vale Shady]

also make sure it gets plenty of sun light because they need the vitamin D from it just like us!

 

[Braden]

Nice profile pic! Calvin and Hobbes forever. And cute spider

 

[Ah Lee]

Welcome to the orbweaver club!

Orbweavers are surprisingly adaptable, so if you give it a small container, it will make a small web. Just make sure you throw in some twigs for anchor points. If you do have a container though, I recommend bigger because you get to see the extent of the web.
Many tiny orbweavers are nocturnal, and take down their webs daily only to rebuild them at night. I'm not sure what species you got, but just observe every evening to see if the little thing webs. As such, try to put it somewhere where it has a natural light cycle, but not in direct sunlight if it's a glass container.
Try to make sure your anchor points are a distance away from the opening of the container, because you can destroy the web while opening the container. Fruit flies are great like Vale Shady mentioned, but if you can't get them, cricket legs work fine too. Just make sure it gets caught in the web. When the spider moves, it can sense that something is in the web and go for it. That's always amazing to watch!

 

[LiseeLou]

I have named her Shelob, because she is the smallest spider I’ve ever seen and I like irony.

It’s been a small () challenge feeding this fierce beast. The first few fruit flies escaped (serves me right for using the netting that is usually her lid, I changed it to plastic wrap for the next few feedings), and later fruit flies didn’t get trapped. She only has a very few silk strands around, and 24 hours after putting a fruit fly in with her, it was still happily buzzing around. I then impaled them on a skewer and tried to offer them straight to her. But she just waved her arms at it for a bit, then ran away.

But today, I had good news and bad news. Good news: Shelob took an aphid from said skewer. Apparently she just doesn’t care for fruit flies. Bad news: my mint plant has aphids . But now I’m wondering if I should let them live as a food source, or preserve the plant as my food source? It definitely makes me happy to see her munching and wrapping her little fat green aphid, though.