programmatic
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2021
- Messages
- 16
Hi, I'm new here (and to arachnid science/study/research and care) . I'm still wading through as many of the widow/button spider posts as I can yield through searches here. I have a good idea now of who the main contributors related to true widows are at this point and would like to take a moment to acknowledge the valuable set of information and insight you've all taken the time to share so far. Thank you- it helps newbies like me get up to speed on the basics, quickly.
I figured I would start this thread given that I think I will have an on-going series of questions that may be beneficial for others as well. If there is a thread like this already that I've missed, please let me know. I'll start by telling my story of how I recently became fascinated by black widows and then end with my current main curiosities.
Last week, a friend told me how he had a lot of black widows at his house in the San Francisco Bay Area. He didn't seem to care. He sent me a picture and they looked brown. In my naïveté, I immediately exclaimed to him that he was wrong and that this was a brown widow. I didn't yet know that males and even immature females were brown. I also didn't know that significant brown widow population likely isn't yet established in Northern California (could be wrong? didn't research too deeply on this).
I told him to bring me one in a smaller sauce container with a clear lid and I would learn to identify it under microscope. Surprisingly, there was an enormous amount of misinformation regarding black widows and correctly identifying them. I finally came across a great article on how to discern black vs brown widows: https://cisr.ucr.edu/invasive-species/how-identify-brown-widow-spiders - Attached one of my microscope shots of what I believe was an immature female (didn't have knobby pedipalps). Sadly, it died shortly after capture, so I pinned it and was able to analyze more carefully. Anyway, of course, I promptly apologized to my friend. He told me there were many more around his yard. So I visited him later that evening and quickly found he wasn't exaggerating. I was amazed at how many were strategically located in every spot you might expect this species of spider to be, given what we know about their behavior. A true undisturbed “infestation” living in peaceful harmony with humans. It was kind of beautiful.
I collected a few so that I could continue my interest in their unique behaviors and movements on webs through observation. Made them good homes based on what I read here. That's the gist of my story.
My two main questions right now are:
1. As one of the collected was exploring its new home and establishing its web, I noticed it drop itself down to the substrate, walk around a bit, and then "pull itself back" to the top of a branch at an angle as if it had an on-demand bungee cord type action with minor directional control from its silk line. It happened in a split second. I found this movement fascinating. I read some spiders will use elasticity in their to-ground silk lines to capture prey, but I can't seem to find much on this particular "traversal" method.
2. What is the healthiest food to be feeding them?
I figured I would start this thread given that I think I will have an on-going series of questions that may be beneficial for others as well. If there is a thread like this already that I've missed, please let me know. I'll start by telling my story of how I recently became fascinated by black widows and then end with my current main curiosities.
Last week, a friend told me how he had a lot of black widows at his house in the San Francisco Bay Area. He didn't seem to care. He sent me a picture and they looked brown. In my naïveté, I immediately exclaimed to him that he was wrong and that this was a brown widow. I didn't yet know that males and even immature females were brown. I also didn't know that significant brown widow population likely isn't yet established in Northern California (could be wrong? didn't research too deeply on this).
I told him to bring me one in a smaller sauce container with a clear lid and I would learn to identify it under microscope. Surprisingly, there was an enormous amount of misinformation regarding black widows and correctly identifying them. I finally came across a great article on how to discern black vs brown widows: https://cisr.ucr.edu/invasive-species/how-identify-brown-widow-spiders - Attached one of my microscope shots of what I believe was an immature female (didn't have knobby pedipalps). Sadly, it died shortly after capture, so I pinned it and was able to analyze more carefully. Anyway, of course, I promptly apologized to my friend. He told me there were many more around his yard. So I visited him later that evening and quickly found he wasn't exaggerating. I was amazed at how many were strategically located in every spot you might expect this species of spider to be, given what we know about their behavior. A true undisturbed “infestation” living in peaceful harmony with humans. It was kind of beautiful.
I collected a few so that I could continue my interest in their unique behaviors and movements on webs through observation. Made them good homes based on what I read here. That's the gist of my story.
My two main questions right now are:
1. As one of the collected was exploring its new home and establishing its web, I noticed it drop itself down to the substrate, walk around a bit, and then "pull itself back" to the top of a branch at an angle as if it had an on-demand bungee cord type action with minor directional control from its silk line. It happened in a split second. I found this movement fascinating. I read some spiders will use elasticity in their to-ground silk lines to capture prey, but I can't seem to find much on this particular "traversal" method.
2. What is the healthiest food to be feeding them?
