Beginner Species

[harveythefly]

Haha not to mention freaking out every single house guest.. ZOMG A SPIDER KILL IT!! Noooo it's mah bebbeh! etc..

But on my next day off I will have to go look outside, however aren't they usually dying by this time of year? *has no clue about spiders natural life cycle*

i'm not sure if Nephila live in WA but i think you have a good chance of snagging some Argiope orb weavers which (down here in louisiana anyway) tend to live a little longer...i have one of those on my swamp tour job as well who actually dropped a big fat eggsac about 2 months ago...alot of the big orb weavers like that drop dead shortly after laying but she's still going strong and showing no sign of slowing down...she's very active and eating HUGE bugs ...it may be because of the mild weather we're having this year

Argiopes also can take larger prey items than Nephila because Nephila can't cocoon their prey so they have to eat smaller bugs even though they're a bigger spider...the Argiope i keep has been taking big dragonflies and giant horseflies...i want to throw an adult hisser in her web and see what she does hehe

and also just like Pulk said i've kept them loose in my house before...just make sure you put them in a room with a door so you can kind of predict where they're going to build...i put one in an unused room once and forgot to close the door and it ended up building in the kitchen hehe...

but anyway have fun hunting!

Harvey

 

[Pulk]

and also just like Pulk said i've kept them loose in my house before...just make sure you put them in a room with a door so you can kind of predict where they're going to build...i put one in an unused room once and forgot to close the door and it ended up building in the kitchen hehe...

have you ever had one move after making a complete web?

 

[harveythefly]

have you ever had one move after making a complete web?

Nephila no...Argiope yes... usually Nephila species make a single web and only make spot repairs as needed...they only remake whole webs if it's completely destroyed...i've only ever kept adult females but i assume they'd take down smaller webs and make bigger ones as they grow but i'm not 100% sure on that one...

Argiope species on the other hand...i've had them take down spotless, beautiful webs and relocate for no obvious reason...like the female i'm keeping right now for instance...she took down 3 webs and relocated them before laying her egg sac and settling down in the web she's in now which she's been in for about 2 months...i do know that some spiders eat their old webs to reprocess the protein so perhaps what she was doing was trying to beef up a little in order to lay her eggs...

here's a picture of my girl right before she layed...sorry the quality is kinda poor but it's the only way i could get a pic without too much backlight...

hope you like her

Harvey

 

[problemchildx]

She looks really nice Harvey..

But yeah it has been raining heavily ever since the start of fall, coincidentally.

:wall:

 

[Pulk]

nice pic.
it's nice to hear you haven't had a Nephila move, I just got two big females. well, I guess it makes sense that they're more permanent, cause they have all that stuff around the orb.

 

[pitbulllady]

The easiest beginner species of true spider in my opinion, based on experience, is Kukulcania hibernalis or one of the closely-related Western species of that genus. In terms of care, personality, and longevity, a female of this species is about as close to a tarantula as you can get without going into the Mygalamorphs. Females are big and impressive, and can live for several years even producing eggsac after eggsac, and they can easily take down a full-size cricket or large cockroach. It doesn't take them long at all to get so used to human company that they will stay out in the open pretty much all the time, so they're a good show-case species, too.
I like to call these "the poor man's Grammostola pulchra", lol!

pitbulllady

 

[cacoseraph]

The easiest beginner species of true spider in my opinion, based on experience, is Kukulcania hibernalis or one of the closely-related Western species of that genus. In terms of care, personality, and longevity, a female of this species is about as close to a tarantula as you can get without going into the Mygalamorphs. Females are big and impressive, and can live for several years even producing eggsac after eggsac, and they can easily take down a full-size cricket or large cockroach. It doesn't take them long at all to get so used to human company that they will stay out in the open pretty much all the time, so they're a good show-case species, too.
I like to call these "the poor man's Grammostola pulchra", lol!

pitbulllady

hehehe, i saw you posted in this thread and i knew you were going to say Kuk (say it like "kook")!

they are really awesome spiders. finding a good size one in the wild is a real thrill!

 

[problemchildx]

Some of them really do look similar to Tarantulas.