Cellar spiders eat stink bugs

[cten]

Recently learned about the Jorō spider, Trichonephila clavata, as a US invasive of unknown impact. The Wikipedia article on this species, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichonephila_clavata, says:

"They have been observed catching the brown marmorated stink bug (Halymorpha halys), another invasive species that native spiders have not been known to eat, and it has also been hoped that they may consume mosquitoes and flies."

In the northeastern US, I have many times seen common cellar spiders (Pholcus phalangioides?) catch brown marmorated shield bugs via stalking or web entanglement, and have also fed live stinkbugs to the spiders by tossing them into a web. Results are mixed: the spiders seem happy, and make more spiders to help control the recent flood of stink bugs. But when the latter are caught and wrapped, they do emit quite a bit of defense odor, in regular pulses, for several hours.

Just wanted to share that with this interesting group.

 

[The Snark]

A little backgrounder on Pentatomidae. Very common in Asia. Native to rain forests and jungles they became an opportunity invasive as forests were cleared for agriculture. The odor emissions are both noxious to deter predators and an irritant. Another emission is produced to attract mates. So pretty sophisticated. The primary predator is birds, especially carrion eaters where the noxious odor works in reverse - attracting instead of repelling.
As for spiders predating them it seems to simply be opportunity targets and both Pholcidae and Nephila would be essentially immune to the odor having no olfactory senses, and as for the irritation aspects, they both tend to leave newly captured pray to hang out for a while so the exuded chemicals would disperse.

Sorry to hear they have invaded the US. Those bugs are the primary reason the Asian farmers go overboard on spraying pesticides.

Trivia. Local kids use the bugs to play dirty tricks, putting the bugs in each others bedding.

As for Clevata invasives, more power to them. Very beneficial, indicators of environmental health, and potentially an educational tool for the local homo erectus to learn about completely harmless quite beautiful animals welcome in any sensible persons garden. I don't understand what all the noise is about them as their cousins, Clavipes, are native to the US.

 

[regalpaws]

I have also heard that different jumping spiders have eaten stink bugs! I have thought about offering them to my own, but any thoughts on using them as feeders?

 

[darkness975]

A little backgrounder on Pentatomidae. Very common in Asia. Native to rain forests and jungles they became an opportunity invasive as forests were cleared for agriculture. The odor emissions are both noxious to deter predators and an irritant. Another emission is produced to attract mates. So pretty sophisticated. The primary predator is birds, especially carrion eaters where the noxious odor works in reverse - attracting instead of repelling.
As for spiders predating them it seems to simply be opportunity targets and both Pholcidae and Nephila would be essentially immune to the odor having no olfactory senses, and as for the irritation aspects, they both tend to leave newly captured pray to hang out for a while so the exuded chemicals would disperse.

Sorry to hear they have invaded the US. Those bugs are the primary reason the Asian farmers go overboard on spraying pesticides.

Trivia. Local kids use the bugs to play dirty tricks, putting the bugs in each others bedding.

As for Clevata invasives, more power to them. Very beneficial, indicators of environmental health, and potentially an educational tool for the local homo erectus to learn about completely harmless quite beautiful animals welcome in any sensible persons garden. I don't understand what all the noise is about them as their cousins, Clavipes, are native to the US.

The brown stink bug Pentatomidae have been invasive here for a while and I hate them. They've reduced our native green ones where I am.

 

[Charliemum]

I have also heard that different jumping spiders have eaten stink bugs! I have thought about offering them to my own, but any thoughts on using them as feeders?

My jumping spider caught one the other night and ate it a meal worm she let escape, I was impressed when I came down in the morning and it was in her web with no abdomen, my jumper button was fine and had no visible problems from catching the beetle. She's a phidippus regius.

 

[regalpaws]

Hey thats so cool, thanks for the info! I have a very large p. regius female who seems like she'd love them so maybe I will give them a try. I wondered if it would be harmful or not but yours seemed to enjoy the treat

 

[Charliemum]

Hey thats so cool, thanks for the info! I have a very large p. regius female who seems like she'd love them so maybe I will give them a try. I wondered if it would be harmful or not but yours seemed to enjoy the treat

She did and has had no side affects as far as I can tell she's still active and has eaten again since so I assume they would be fine as an occasional treat but until there is more study done on it I wouldn't feed them as a staple diet. Just because Button ate one doesn't mean they would be OK in the long term as a staple food I have no idea what their nutritional benefit would be if any . Plus she seemed to only be able to eat the abdomen the rest of the beetle was still in her web so not really a very big meal for her . They can clearly take them down though because button did, she's maybe 2cm in size for reference .

 

[regalpaws]

That's a good point! I did some looking around to find out what nutritional value stink bugs have, and so far I could only find one article that mentioned Encosternum delegorguei, the green stink bugs. I have the brown marmorated here where I live. Anyways, the article mentions that these have 35.2% protein and 50.5% fat, so I am guessing it is too high to feed as a staple like you mentioned. Waxworms have about 22% fat, and I've heard even that is too high for jumpers, but is ok for a treat.

Here's the article if you wanted to take a look too

http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/sajs/v103n11-12/a0310312.pdf