ID please - Steatoda?

Pssh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
197
I live in northern California, but more central I guess. Sacramento. I was looking up all kinds of stuff trying to figure it out.

They are both females right?

Edit: are the white spots/eyes an indicator of anything? The adult has those. I was trying to check her eyes to make sure she was a Steatoda, but it wasn't working so well...
 

Silberrücken

Arachnoangel
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
875
This is a job for.. Widowman10!!!! :D

He will be able to give you an exact ID... be patient, he'll be along shortly! :)

jsloan also is very good with ID's too!

I agree with S. grossa, but not 100% positive.

Nice pics and great find, btw! Thanks for sharing, and good luck with ID's! :)

S.
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 25, 2007
Messages
4,212
haha, JSloan is just about 3752349X better at ID's than i am {D

i'm good with the ones i know (or the easy ones for me!). yes, these are Steatoda grossa, everyone is right. immature perhaps, as you can still see the spots on the dorsal abdomen.

also, can't see too well, but pic 2/12 looks like it might be a penultimate male (if the palps are a little swollen and it's not the angle). that picture looked a little different than most of the other pics which were of the female.
 

Pssh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
197
Okay, pictures 2,3,4,8,10,11,12 are the same spider (the smaller one I found) and pictures 5,6,7,9 are the larger spider I found. There are only two spiders.
 

Pssh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
197
I can't sleep so I went spider hunting. I found a zillion more and three egg sacks! We don't kill spiders at my house so I guess they've just been building up their population! I haven't seen any males yet though.

Edit: nevermind. I found an immature male.

Edit2: my total findings = 12 egg sacks, 2 adult female, 6 smaller ones of varying sizes/instars. I accidentally smooshed one while I was trying to catch it. I saw another female as well, but she escaped before I could get her.

All of them have happily feasted on hydei fruit flies. How often should I feed them?
 
Last edited:

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 25, 2007
Messages
4,212
if you keep the sub-adults sated, they will mature much faster. otherwise, just keep them plump. merry christmas :D
 

Pssh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
197
Alrighty. Will it bother them if there are uneaten fruit flies with them?
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 25, 2007
Messages
4,212
sub-adult steatoda should be feeding on appropriately sized prey. FF are too small, they should be on some crix or something. usually i dump one at a time into the cage, not tons of them.
 

Pssh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
197
Not the larger ones. I have some really small ones too. I tried to only put one or two in, but a few extra got in. I fed the bigger ones small crickets. I wouldn't leave crickets in with them.
 

Pssh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
197
I've got prey of almost every size available at any given time, so no worries. I'm only a noob to true spiders :)
 
Top