Pholcid parenting behaviour

[vicareux]

I don't know anything about Pholcid spiders except that they're hanging out in my Room, catching the little gnats that get inside.
While doing stuff in my backyard, i spotted a Pholcid on the wall with something hanging below it. Upon closer look, i saw its little EWL's molting into slings. But upon closer look with my DSLR, i saw it has palpal bulbs, or at least that's what it looks like to me. It also looks like the Pholcid is holding an open eggsac in his fangs while the slings hang from it. Am i observing this correctly?

 

[The Snark]

Excellent picture. Captured the hatching plus a nicely attractive pattern on the mom. You might be able to ID the species from that pattern. Also the shot clearly shows the pholcus eye pattern. Two lopsided triangles to the sides and a smaller pair to the front.
All the pholcids I've observed, 3 or 4 species native to SE Asia, carry the egg sac clamped in the chelicera. As far as I can tell they don't predate each other and will disperse at random living on the nutrients in their abdomen. Most will remain in the parent webs and feed off prey the parent captures then slowly move out to make their own webs. Adult pholcids aren't the most effective at prey capture - wrangling the prey with the back four legs. The youngsters don't have legs long enough to do this for several molts and are perforce opportunity feeders relying on older pholcids around them.
BTW, they don't make egg sacs. Just as you see in the pictures, a mass of eggs glued or loosely webbed together.

 

[vicareux]

Excellent picture. Captured the hatching plus a nicely attractive pattern on the mom. You might be able to ID the species from that pattern. Also the shot clearly shows the pholcus eye pattern. Two lopsided triangles to the sides and a smaller pair to the front.
All the pholcids I've observed, 3 or 4 species native to SE Asia, carry the egg sac clamped in the chelicera. As far as I can tell they don't predate each other and will disperse at random living on the nutrients in their abdomen. Most will remain in the parent webs and feed off prey the parent captures then slowly move out to make their own webs. Adult pholcids aren't the most effective at prey capture - wrangling the prey with the back four legs. The youngsters don't have legs long enough to do this for several molts and are perforce opportunity feeders relying on older pholcids around them.
BTW, they don't make egg sacs. Just as you see in the pictures, a mass of eggs glued or loosely webbed together.

Thank you for the info. So it is a female? The enlarged ends of the pedipalps aren't palpal bulbs/emboli?

 

[The Snark]

So it is a female? The enlarged ends of the pedipalps aren't palpal bulbs/emboli?

Could be either sex. They are very communal and share everything including care for the young. As a wild guess, it's female and the enlarged palps are some response to help contain the eggs.

 

[vicareux]

Could be either sex. They are very communal and share everything including care for the young.

Sounds like a well functioning spider family. Thank you, i guess what they lack in grand appearance, they make up in unique behavior.

 

[The Snark]

they make up in unique behavior.

That says it well. They don't care at all where they make their webs. Other pholcids touching or entering their webs go ignored, They don't have a preferred orientation, head up, down, sideways or whatever, every web is unique as to where they make it and the general format - from small tight masses to spread out all over the place. As long as the web remains intact they don't care about activity around them. If the web gets overly disturbed they readily abandon it, drop out, find a vertical surface and start making a new one within a few minutes.

 

[The Snark]

unique behavior.

I've got on a few inches from me right now, determined to web up the top of my book case. I have to reach into the web to turn my reading lamp on. It now ignores those intrusions and repairs where I stick my hand in.
@vicareux It loves to try and wrangle the flying insects, especially the termites, but it is woefully inept with them. Frustrating to watch. I'll kill one and drop it in it's web now and then. Sometimes it wrangles, sometimes they just fall through. Hence the name I gave it: Putz.