Here's Albert, my happy little daddy long leg, who I posted about a while back. He's grown quite a bit:
(pictured with an ant)
He's a house spider who's situated himself comfortably in my home for the last several months, and I feed him ants and flies. He's had two molts so far that I know of and both seem to have gone quite well. Every so often he'll stop eating for awhile, but he seems otherwise healthy, and I've heard this is normal behavior.
However, whenever he does stop eating, I go into spider-mom mode and start worrying about something I heard about - that male adult spiders will stop eating until they mate, and eventually starve to death if they don't mate. I have no idea if he's actually a male or a female.
Is there any way to sex these spiders? I'm not even sure on his exact species, only that he's a member of Pholcidae, but if anyone knows more specifically that'd be great. If it helps for identification, I live in California.
(pictured with an ant)
He's a house spider who's situated himself comfortably in my home for the last several months, and I feed him ants and flies. He's had two molts so far that I know of and both seem to have gone quite well. Every so often he'll stop eating for awhile, but he seems otherwise healthy, and I've heard this is normal behavior.
However, whenever he does stop eating, I go into spider-mom mode and start worrying about something I heard about - that male adult spiders will stop eating until they mate, and eventually starve to death if they don't mate. I have no idea if he's actually a male or a female.
Is there any way to sex these spiders? I'm not even sure on his exact species, only that he's a member of Pholcidae, but if anyone knows more specifically that'd be great. If it helps for identification, I live in California.