First female Latrodectus died after 3 months.

[CutThroat Kid]

Beginning of this spring I caught a P. Audax in my friend's shop (whose egg sac recently just hatched out! Yay!!), and it inspired me to catch some other ordinary house spiders and observe their behavior. I had more but released the ones I suspected to be old or too hard to keep alive in captivity (Araneus, etc..). I ended up with a grass spider (my favorite, but it seems to be on the decline now that she's put out three sacs which I discarded because ew), two female Audaxes (well, now over 30, given the hatch out), and both a male and female Widow. Unfortunately, I must be a terrible widow keeper because the male lost a front leg on its final molt into sexual maturity, and my female seemed healthy until it lost a leg for no apparent reason about two weeks ago, and then steadily declined until showing some twitchy uncoordinated DKS type behaviors. A couple of days go by followed by even greater weakness and a creamy sticky residue I found on the spinnerets and anus. By this point, I knew she was probably a goner so I cleared the goop spot off her abdomen with tongs, and she weakly climbed back up to her usual spot. I think it may have just been poop that she made a mess of herself. Checked again a few hours later and now she's on the ground, dead, not even in a full death curl.

All my other house spiders, tarantulas, and inverts generally are doing great, so I know it's not a harmful aerosol.
I keep the room about 70-75F.
She was not kept with a humidity-retaining substrate but was gently misted almost daily.
Fed crickets and Red Runner nymphs.
Kept in about an 8Oz container w cross ventilation.

I'd possibly like to keep widows again in the future but don't want to kill any more if that's what I've done here.

 

[jbooth]

The legs could have just gotten stuck in pinch-points in the jars.. I did that to one of my wolf spiders I think, spots they can wedge legs and get them stuck... I don't know much about widows, but twitching should be neurological/environmental poisoning of some kind. Although you would most likely see that almost immediately in your red runners first if it was widespread/aerosol. Perhaps some contaminant / fungus only in her jar? Have you noticed red runners dying? They have the thinnest exoskeletons of all roaches and are a perfect canary in the coal mine for poisons. Other than that.. that's friggin' weird lol. and kinda scary.

 

[CutThroat Kid]

The legs could have just gotten stuck in pinch-points in the jars.. I did that to one of my wolf spiders I think, spots they can wedge legs and get them stuck... I don't know much about widows, but twitching should be neurological/environmental poisoning of some kind. Although you would most likely see that almost immediately in your red runners first if it was widespread/aerosol. Perhaps some contaminant / fungus only in her jar? Have you noticed red runners dying? They have the thinnest exoskeletons of all roaches and are a perfect canary in the coal mine for poisons. Other than that.. that's friggin' weird lol. and kinda scary.

No, everything here seems healthy. Might be an old age thing but it wasn’t a huge widow. Being wild caught I thought maybe the strange behavior meant an egg was coming but I guess not.

I thought that for the leg but you can see where the leg got left in the picture. I feel like it getting stuck and somehow ending up there is unlikely.

 

[jbooth]

Possibly just the luck of the draw. I know here there are at least 2 species, maybe 3, not sure if I have seen northern in this town or not, but close for sure. On my house I have western and southern, and the females look almost identical besides size.. a "small one" of the southern could be a really old western too... just a thought. The southern are huge. Also, being wild caught it could have gotten contaminated outside, but probably a long-shot if the effects were so slow...

 

[CutThroat Kid]

a "small one" of the southern could be a really old western too...

Good point. I think I'll choose to believe that, lol.

I think we have all three, Nothern, Western, and Southern, here in Idaho where I'm at actually.

 

[Tarantuland]

I ended up with a grass spider (my favorite, but it seems to be on the decline now that she's put out three sacs which I discarded because ew),

What do you mean by discarded them?

 

[CutThroat Kid]

What do you mean by discarded them?

They’re on my porch waiting for spring time. Didn’t really feel like there would be much rhyme or reason to hatching out hundreds of grass spiders “just for fun”. I do have about ~35 P. Audax nymphs im trying to rear, but its my first time doing spider babies.

 

[worldsparadox]

I lost my last Widow after an accidentally large misting, her enclosure did not have adequate ventilation and she succumbed to some sort of infection.

 

[CutThroat Kid]

I lost my last Widow after an accidentally large misting, her enclosure did not have adequate ventilation and she succumbed to some sort of infection.

This is why I didn’t use moisture retaining substrate, but sand instead. But Im wondering if I’d kept mine too dry or too warm based on the fact that both my widows lost limbs. We usually find them in dark, dank, cool environments, like crawl spaces and sprinkler boxes, so i think i will try harder to replicate that in the future.

 

[Tarantuland]

They’re on my porch waiting for spring time. Didn’t really feel like there would be much rhyme or reason to hatching out hundreds of grass spiders “just for fun”. I do have about ~35 P. Audax nymphs im trying to rear, but its my first time doing spider babies.

better on your porch than in your freezer, cheers

 

[darkness975]

If you caught the female as a mature adult it probably just expired naturally. I've had it happen plenty of times in the past.

Males don't live long compared to females so that's not too surprising.

I used to use sand in the early days but it seemed to cause some issues so I stopped.