Stacey's Web Development Co.

[Ah Lee]

Welcome to Stacey's web development company.

We specialise in the development of websites, which may or may not be in the position you want, may or may not be the design you want, and may or may not be the color you want. What we can promise, is that your website will be bug-free. Bugs are promptly removed, as long as you keep providing them.



Our founder and CEO, Stacey has sadly left us on 17th December 2020. She will always be remembered for her fervent dedication to removing bugs from the system, and her artistic flair in painting the office walls white. You can read more about her story here:

Stacey the golden-web spider (Nephila Pilipes)

This is Stacey. She is a Nephila Pilipes that I bumped into while on a jog 2 months ago. I've seen many before, but she is the youngest I have ever seen in the wild. She had just built a web when a lumbering fat man (me) crashed into it, and she ended up on my hair. So I decided to bring her...

arachnoboards.com

Introducing Pepper



Shortly after the funeral, a young, eager worker has stepped up to take over the reins of our beloved CEO. She is a Nephila Kuhlii, and is just a bit larger than my thumbnail, just a bit larger than Stacey was when she founded the company. One thing I noticed about the Nephila kuhlii I have handled though, is that they are FAST. Unlike their pilipes cousins, they run across my hand with a speed you wouldn't expect from an orbweaver. They also seem much more prone to dropping from my hand with a bungee cord, and subsequently escaping. This vast difference in temperament is quite interesting, because there are people who think that the N.kuhlii is a color morph of the N.pilipes.

In any case, our young CEO ran up the canopy and almost immediately started work. This was the fastest I have ever seen a new spider settle in. Within a few hours, a new web(site) was up. Talk about enthusiasm!



The web was huge for such a tiny spider, measuring about 1.2m across. It was a perfectly symmetrical orbweb, unlike the asymmetrical ones they spin as adults. It was exactly where Stacey's old web was, which gives me a little comfort because I'm so used to looking in the corner and saying 'Morning Stacey' everyday. She was rewarded with a dragonfly, then 2, and then 3. And then she molted. Within the same day as her last meal. Things happen so quickly with these little ones!



Here she is in all her freshly-molted glory. I love how she has yellow tarsi which contrast so nicely with her red femur and tibia. I think this will be lost as she gets older, but we'll see! You can also see how much she's grown in one molt, that's just before she started taking down that old skin.

In the next post I'll introduce our Chief Web Designer. She's an amazing little critter, but it's quite hard to take a photo of her cause she's so shy. Till tomorrow!

 

[Aline]

I'm eager to follow Pepper's tale! How big are the dragonflies you feed her, if she is so tiny?

 

[Ah Lee]

I'm eager to follow Pepper's tale! How big are the dragonflies you feed her, if she is so tiny?

It's uncanny, but the answer is bite-sized dragonflies!



The day I buried Stacey, the large, juicy dragonfly swarm had largely disappeared. Instead, these little dragonflies started appearing everywhere. They didn't swarm lije the large ones, but the grass patch was full of them.

It's strange huh, that little patch of nature always seems to provide exactly what I need!

Small as they are, they still have one hell of a flutter. So i usually shake 'em up in the container a bit to knock them out before throwing them in the web. They still struggle sometimes, but not enough to damage the web much.

 

[KeGathings17]

Dang, it's too bad about stacey, I really liked that thread, and she was quite the specimen. She's up there spinning the gold web in the sky now. Can't wait to see the direction Pepper takes the company!

 

[Ah Lee]

Introducing our chief web designer



This is Skittles. She is a Nephilengys malabarensis.

If you think her name sounds close to Nephila, you are right! They are closely-related. Cousins, if you will. We named her Skittles because she's a really shy, skittish thing, and makes a really cute scuttling sound when she runs into her styrofoam hide. The longer I keep her, the more I find really amazing stuff about her, she really is such a special spider I do not know why her species isn't that well-known. In this post, I'll share some of that with y'all!

She is nowhere as big as her Nephila cousins, but still large for an orbweaver. Her carapace is a shiny grey, and abdomen a beautiful, mottled yellow-brown combo.



She has bright red markings on her sternum and underside of her abdomen, quite similar to a black widow, but without the venom!

Job of the chief web designer

Where Skittles really shines, is at web-building. That's why she's our chief web designer. Because she builds 3 different kinds of webs all in one.



First web: Tube web
When we first released her into the Exoterra, she found a safe retreat behind the styrofoam background, where there is a tiny gap for wires to go through. There she built a long tube web that extends down the gap. She hides there when she's frightened.

Second web: Tangle web
Over the course of the next few days, she will come out at night and build a lattice of webs which extends all the way to the front edge of the tank. It's a tangle-web, much like a tent web spider or a black widow. When she doesn't feel that safe (like when the light is on), she tends to hang around there. She also brings prey there to eat, and builds her eggsac there. She can move really swiftly through that mess, but I guess any potential predators will get hindered by the lattice. That's the second web.

Third web: Orb web
Another couple of days later, and she built her orbweb. It is a fine, delicate orbweb with the hub nearer to the top, similar to Nephilas. She hangs out at the top of the orb at night, and sometimes still stays there even when we switch on the lights.

In the wild, it was much larger. About a metre in width and 2 metres tall. It was anchored by 2 strong vertical lines, giving it a waterfall look.



Skittles is easily the most hardworking spider in the company. Her web is almost always perfect. Her orbweb is the one that catches food, so it gets damaged often. Whenever she feels it's getting ratty, she eats it and rebuilds. The lattice web lasts much longer, but over time webs start to clump together to form white wisps, and butterfly scales stain it. She will then also take it down and rebuild it at night. What's interesting is that she only rebuilds either the lattice web or the orbweb at once, never both at the same time. We have never seen her tube web since, but knowing her, it's pristine. Her work is immaculate, her web is almost always invisible, unlike Nephilas.

Babies!

One of the best things to happen at Stacey's Web Development Co. is Skittle's eggsac. An interesting note is that males break off their pedipalps into females after mating, in an effort to prevent other males from mating with her as well. I never noticed if Skittles had a mating plug in her when I brought her home a few months back, but let's hope this eggsac is not a dud.



Interestingly, her eggsac is made of a lightly golden silk, as compared to the white she uses for her webs. After building the sac, she goes down to pick up wood chips to coat the eggsac with. It's really cool to see! You can see the remnants of the wood chips in the web photo.

But the most incredible thing about her eggsac, is it's strength. I am no stranger to the strength of spider webs, but this is bordering on ridiculous. The wooden stick I was using broke. I tried pulling it off with forceps but it felt like I was trying to tear a T-shirt in half. It was so mind-boggling I did some Googling and learnt that the toughest recorded eggsac ever in a spider belongs to a Nephilengys cruentata. Go figure!

So there you have it, the hardest worker in the company. And one with lots of incredible skills. She is just pretty hard to photograph because she was really shy, and her tank is usually humid and has water stains from all the misting. She's hanging around outside more now that we have moved our human stuff away from her so we disturb her less when we grab stuff, so hopefully we'll get more photos soon!

 

[Ah Lee]

Merry Christmas from all of us at Stacey's Web Dev. Co!



Looks like the Christmas tree will be a permanent decor now, seeing as Pepper is using it as an anchor, the little rascal. She really loves that tree!



Over at the nursery, we have a beautiful surprise. Hundreds of Christmas babies! And yes, they are incubated on an old surgical mask, so the first thing they smell when they hatch is my terrible breath.

I've only had time to snap this before I left home for work, I'll try to get some nicer shots later when I'm home! Again, if anybody is interested in keeping this amazing species, hit me up! They are free to a good home, just pay for shipping

 

[Ah Lee]

Hello kids!



This is as macro as I can get with my camera, and I can still just barely see them. They are TINY. Right now they are just huddling around each other fidgeting slightly every now and then. They'll probably start dispersing soon, then I'll transfer them to a mesh cage. I want them to have the best chance of survival, so I might raise them through 1 or 2 molts before releasing them. And of course I will keep a few!

 

[Ah Lee]

Pepper the fastidous



Pepper has had a few bugs since she came, and I have to say, she is taking her job seriously! She patches holes as and when they appear, its not perfect and you can see the difference in the newly patched spot, but it gets the job done.

Yesterday, after a fight with a particularly large dragonfly, she completely ate her first web, and rebuilt it. You can see the lines are slightly thicker than her first one, and the characteristic manuscript paper look of a Nephila web!



I also installed a brighter, warmer daylight basking light for Pepper. It's an Exoterra Daylight Basking 100W, and at where Pepper is, it's just a gentle warmth. I had always been hesitant to do this with Stacey for fear it might dessicate her, but almost every Nephila I see in the wild has exposure to bright, direct sunlight, so I decided to give it a go. May be weird getting a basking light for a spider, but I still feel heat/light might be crucial to the well-being of this species.

 

[Ah Lee]

Pepper's 3rd molt



Pepper molted today! And since I have the rare day off due to the New Year holidays, I had the pleasure of documenting the entire process. One word: fascinating! Also I'm lucky she's young, so it was all over in an hour, or I would have leg cramps perched on that stool taking photos.

Pre-molt



I first realised Pepper was going to molt when she her rear legs were locked straight, that's always the first sign of an impending molt. It's subtle but it's obvious to me. Her color now is a really dark red, and you can see how disproportionate her abdomen is to her carapace. Her last meal was about 24 hours ago.

Pop goes the spider



By the time I finished my pizza and came back, she was already halfway out. Interestingly, this time she molted without anchoring her feet to the web. I guess this is an alternative? Riskier possibly, because even when I closed the windows to prevent the wind from disturbing her, she was swaying a fair bit.

One really cool thing is that their exoskeletons are always translucent brown no matter what color the spider is. That means you can literally see her legs leaving the exoskeleton, the red slowly receding from her old shell. I honestly do not know how that happens. Does the old exoskeleton lose pigmentation before a molt? Nevertheless it's really cool to see.

Almost there!



Things got a little slower at the end, I guess she's tired because she's been pumping real hard the first half. You can see all the color has left her old exoskeleton.

Ta-dah!



I failed to see this part of the molt when Stacey molted last time, but this time I got it on camera! It's truly a marvel to behold as Pepper breaks free of her old shell and falls down in a stream of red and yellow. She spends a long time in this position, stretching and pumping fluids to her legs. Her growth is incredible.

The I-did-it flex



At a certain point after molting, Nephilas always do this strange flex where they curl all their legs up to their sternum. I do not know why, but when Pepper finally stretched all her legs out at the same time after the flex, she looked like a flower blooming. Beautiful!

Post-molt



Here she is in all her freshly-molted glory. I'm glad to see she has retained her yellow tarsi, I really think they are beautiful. Like Stacey, her growth during her juvenile days are explosive, I feed her every 2 days now but will probably slow it down to 3 days after this molt. For now I will leave her be, she'll soon start untangling her molt which I really like to watch, but I'm too tired for now.

Skittles' babies update

Skittles babies seem to be doing ok! To be honest I am worried because after a week, they are still huddling. The main mass of web is just full of exoskeletons and egg cases, and a small bunch have been separated but have made their own group and are huddled together too. I was so worried the main sac might be dead that I took a small cutter and very carefully sliced some webbing off. Lo and behold! Dozens of babies are just squirming about in the center, amongst a shell of exoskeletons. The disturbance caused them to scatter a bit, but very quickly they huddled back in the middle again. I guess that means they are still not ready. A part of me actually stupidly thought they might be stuck. Anyways they seem to have grown darker in color, and are a little more like spiders now. It's still too hard to get a photo of them, I'll probably get my camera tomorrow to take some macro shots.

 

[The Snark]

At a certain point after molting, Nephilas always do this strange flex where they curl all their legs up to their sternum.

I've observed this too and I'll venture a guess. It's hyper flexion, the opposite of hyper extension. Humans do this as a partially autonomic neurological trigger - stretching. Limbers up the muscles and aids in oxygen profusion to the cells. In spiders, especially ones with extremely long thin legs like nephs, this could also aid the musculature to evenly fill in the exoskeleton which would reduce the possibility of developing muscle 'knots'. Knots being hyper irritable spots in the facial tissues - myofacial trigger points. Again, purely guess work. A rheumatologist or orthopedist could help explain this.

 

[Ah Lee]

I've observed this too and I'll venture a guess. It's hyper flexion, the opposite of hyper extension. Humans do this as a partially autonomic neurological trigger - stretching. Limbers up the muscles and aids in oxygen profusion to the cells. In spiders, especially ones with extremely long thin legs like nephs, this could also aid the musculature to evenly fill in the exoskeleton which would reduce the possibility of developing muscle 'knots'. Knots being hyper irritable spots in the facial tissues - myofacial trigger points. Again, purely guess work. A rheumatologist or orthopedist could help explain this.

That's a good guess. Seeing as she goes into full extension for a good long while and then into full flexion. My guess is that it is more to do with ensuring maximum range of motion in the joints before the exoskeleton hardens.

The whole process looks really risky though. Besides the obvious risk of predation, it looks like one good gust of wind could possibly foul up the whole process.

 

[Ah Lee]

Kids are doing fine!



Of course they are, but that doesn't stop me worrying and checking on them first thing every morning. It's been a little over a week since they hatched now, and they have lost their yolk, and are starting to take on mommy's colors. The photo above is the small batch that got separated from the main group. They have started pulling a couple of lines, but are more or less still huddled together.



The main group is doing fine too. I'm always worried they might not be because of how black the mass is now, it looks like it has gone bad, but on closer inspection it is just the kids getting their color. What I am worried about is why they have not dispersed even after a good 9 days. I am hesitant to feed them now because if they are not ready to eat, the insect juice could go bad quickly and foul things up.

My plan for feeding is just to toss crickets in a tiny syringe, then proceed to press the plunger down slowly. Voila! Freshly-pressed cricket juice that I'll attempt to trickle evenly around. A mist bottle was my original idea, but I just feel that would make too much of a mess. But in any case, I am going to wait till tomorrow to see if they start dispersing.

 

[The Snark]

The whole process looks really risky though. Besides the obvious risk of predation, it looks like one good gust of wind could possibly foul up the whole process.

Predation is an ever present threat regardless. If you look closely at the thread she is hanging from when doing yoga, that's a guy line, not a flimsy orb line. New meaning to the phrase 'hang in there'.
Cute kids.

 

[Ah Lee]

Well, crap.



Skittles just laid another eggsac, this time in the far corner of the tank. She's really keeping me busy. Plan's the same for this one, but if anyone wants the sac, please let me know. Free to a good home, just take real good care of them!



Meanwhile the first batch exploded. I decided to cut a tiny slit in the mess of webbing holding them together, and poof! Within an hour they had scattered. Interesting though, I wonder if Mom helps them cut the sac in the wild. As far as I can see, everyone's healthy and really active. I estimate at least 200, and I'm just elated! I'll be feeding and then releasing the bulk of them tomorrow. I'll keep about 10, and once I can sex them, I'll pick my favorite one and release the rest too.

Any idea how early do orbweavers start showing signs of sexual dimorphism?

 

[XxSpiderQueenxX]

Great journal, adorable spiders

 

[The Snark]

Any idea how early do orbweavers start showing signs of sexual dimorphism?

In general, second or third molt. Males only double or so in size.
Wish I could offer my garden and the surrounding area few the extra / orphan slings.

 

[Ah Lee]

In general, second or third molt. Males only double or so in size.
Wish I could offer my garden and the surrounding area few the extra / orphan slings.

Well if you're hankering for any of these, I do have a 2nd eggsac coming up which I have no idea what to do with

Babies have mostly molted at least once now, some are visibly larger than the others, but whether or not that is enough to tell their gender, I'm still not sure to be honest. Hopefully the males get their red coloration early on, that'll save me a lot of guesswork.

 

[The Snark]

You should shortly be seeing two very different sizes. Males will simply stop growing. Fortunately predation among the young is virtually unheard of. Won't do any harm to allow the males to make themselves at home near to each other. When they make webs they will be pretty small at first. One or two inch across orbs. Very cute. Once mature they will often move into the perimeter of the females webs, often living their entire lives there. They are all obligatory web builders. No web, they die. Males will probably get by on fruit flies. Just leave a piece or two of rotting fruit out.They may try using the neighbors webs and food. I've seen 4 or 5 male webs sharing guy lines, right up against each other. Females love moths and are much more independent
Please note, this is all from observations in situ. If they do odd things I'd very much like to read about it.

 

[Ah Lee]

Pepper's new office

Been more than a week since my last update, lots of excitement going on at Stacey's Web Development Co., but work has been so busy the last thing I wanted to do is spend more time on the computer. Today I have some time, so the first update is that Pepper has moved! She took down her web last week, ate the whole thing and begun the annoying tour of my room's ceiling. I had to move her once when I caught her trying to build an anchor line above my computers, and after that she started building a couple of anchor lines near her old web. She spent the next few days hanging out there with all her legs outstretched, Pepper and Stacey always do that, I don't know why. Maybe to observe prey availability or potential disturbances in the area? This is a completely wild theory, but like I mentioned before, every single web that Stacey and Pepper has built is out of the way of regular human traffic, as are 99% of webs I see in the wild. I think some kind of consideration is taken before a web is built, especially since Nephilas do not take their webs down regularly.

Anyways, I tong-fed her a dragonfly, and lo and behold, the next day she built a nice little web within the planted area. It's about half the size of her old one, I'm not sure why she built it so tiny, it might be due to the crazy winds we've been having in my country lately. But here it is!




As usual I had to move her UV light to her new web, and I realised this one has a slight golden sheen. Yay! This web is much stronger though. I have fed her 2 dragonflies so far, and there's nary a hole in it. That's about it for Pepper, she truly is a beauty to look at though, especially in this new spot!

 

[Ah Lee]

Baby formula (Ages 1 week and up)

As for the babies, after much deliberation, I decided to start feeding them a soup to start them off. I would have gone for fruit flies, but even those are a little big for them.

Here's the recipe for my delicious 100% home-made, organic broth:

-5 crickets
-A few drops of honey
-A bit of water

I dissolved the honey in the water, then placed the crickets in a small syringe below



A quick squeeze and ta-dah! Instant baby formula.



I squirted a few squirts into their cage, and all hell broke loose. They went mad for the juice, lapping it up with their tiny legs. This availability of food must have triggered their hunting instincts, because I started to see them attacking each other. Most of the time the fights ended with one party running away, but sometimes one ended up as a meal. It was pandemonium.

The release

I quickly decided that a release was in order. The container I had them in was really small, and there wasn't a lot of space for them to disperse anymore. I drove them up to the hill where I found Skittles, and released them near an old tree. Hopefully the bark of the tree and the surrounding thick vegetation will give them some shelter in the terrible weather we are having recently. I gave them another squirt of grandpa's magic potion, and watched as they lapped it up and started to disperse. It was all very chaotic so the only photo I have of the whole process is this:



Gradually the wind took some of them with it, some disappeared into the vegetation. I hope I had given them a good head start in life, they're on their own now! I kept about 15 of the ones that were still in the container, these will be with me for a little longer till I decide which to keep.

The special one

And almost immediately as I reached home, I found him/her. Somehow, one of the sneaky things found its way into my room, and has set up camp on Pepper's Christmas tree.




Its web is beautiful, about the size of a credit card but so perfect. It's just like a minature version of Skittle's web in the wild, with the characteristic "cut edge" of this species. I love it! I fed it some baby formula, and set up a really ghetto way of drawing fruit flies to it.



Yep, that is a banana peel clipped to a water bottle. Hopefully this helps the little thing feed. I'll be planning a way to catch some fruit flies soon, if anybody has any brilliant ideas I would love to hear it. Hopefully it turns out to be a female, and she'll be the next one I keep for life.

New escape-proof, ant-proof containers

Meanwhile the main party has been shifted to a new container. Their old container was overrun by ants, no doubt interested in that sweet honey, but luckily none of them got eaten. I modified the container to have a mesh opening for ventilation, and fed them again with a pure cricket juice formula.



Meanwhile, I also built an incubator for Skittle's second batch of babies.



I can't wait for the babies to grow up. Cute as they are now, feeding them is a messy, sticky affair. And they are VERY hard to rehouse. Still, they have been keeping me really busy, and not to mention happy!