My Alaskan Running Crab Spider

[Dawnes1221]

In the Philodromus genus. I am posting these pictures to show the spider I managed to catch in my house. I have had it positivly ID'd, on spider.us as a Running Crab Spider. My next step is to learn as much as I can about this spider and make it a home. It was a big deal to find it because I moved here from Texas about two years ago, and this is only the second spider I have spotted here in Alaska, compared to Texas where I saw countless spiders and other insects. I even caught this lil spider a mosquito, and watched it take it down! The mosquito was easily double the size of the spider. Happy and just wanting to share and document my experience, and hope to learn and make acquaintance with other animal enthusiasts.

 

[Doodlebird]

I saw your post on spiderID! The crab spider I have is a bark crab spider, but I imagine care would be similar. I prefer vertical enclosures for crab spiders, and I like to have lot of horizontal surfaces for mine to hide under. I personally prefer to keep the bottom of the enclosure damp, and the top a but drier, as I'm not sure what humidity is best. I like to give mine a couple flightless fruit flies when I notice her abdomen shrinking a bit. I haven't found any great resources on crab spider care, so this is mostly trial and error for me

 

[Dawnes1221]

Thank you for the help! I will do exactly that and for the time being but? I will feed it mosquitoes, as it is mosquito season here. The only thing I'm worried about is if I fond more in my house I think they would probably be related to each other and I don't want to inbreed them. How big is yours? Anyways, I will update when I have finished upgrading its enclosure. Thank you very much, I appreciate you.

 

[Doodlebird]

Sure thing! I wouldn't worry about mosquitoes too much, since spiders don't tend to eat a ton. I had a spider that was around 1.5cm, but he passed recently, so now I have this cute little 2mm spider

 

[Dawnes1221]

Update: I did not build an enclosure for my Crab Spider, I only put a barely dampened tissue paper in the tupperware container with a light mist of droplets near the tissue. The lid of the tupperware is a plastic screw on and I didn't screw it so there would be oxygen flow.

The day after the Crab Spider ate both the mosquitos, the first eaten mosquito looked like it was starting to mold. I have identical tupperware containers and the spider was staying on the lid, so I took the lid and put it on a fresh other tupperware container with a fresh misted tissue.

Fast forward to now from when I originally posted the thread, I came home and checked on Crab Spider, who also looked much bigger, and I was shocked, it looked like there was another smaller spider in with it. I thought maybe it was one of the opposite sex, and had sensed Crab Spider, and the new Spider squeezed between the lid threads, since it's not screwed all the way. Well after inspecting the new spider with my flashlight, I determined the new spider looked so tiny and skinny. And original crab spider must have thoroughly enjoyed his two meals, because original crab spider looked almost 1 1/2 cm - 2cm legspan, compared to my first measurements, (just under 1cm.)

So I decided to catch another mosquito to put in there. I dropped in the new mosquito and thats when I realized new Spider isn't a new Spider but original Crab Spider's moult! Now Crab Spider has a nice after-moult meal ready for anytime.

I am so happy the environment was right for Crab Spider to decide to moult. It was so exciting to discover. I took pictures but the tupperware impeded me from taking good photos.

I want to take better pictures but my work schedule is seriously interfering with my capabilities to live my life how I would like.

Will update when there is more to update.

Thank you for reading about crab spider and I's journey.

 

[Doodlebird]

I'm glad they are eating and molting for you!