Steatoda cricket massacre

[Wade]

I found these guys setting up shop in the cricket bin at work. Steatoda, I assume, mabe S. grossa? Anyway, there's alot of them in there. Looking at these, it's easy to see why they're sometimes called "false widows"!

They're living so close together I almost want to call them communal, but I think the super abundance of food combined with the shape of the egg crating has enabled them to get by with tiny terratories. Each female seems to have moved into her own little "apartment", i.e one of the cones of egg crate.

I had to clean out the bin, but I set up a nex container and transfered the most densly populated egg crate sections to it.

Here's a pic of a female and some of her former dinner guests:

 

[Wade]

Here's a pic of two males, nexdoor neigbors as it were:

 

[Wade]

And finnally, a happy family

 

[D-Man]

Are you keeping some of these guys in your collection?

 

[Wade]

Yeah, I'm keeping the ones in the picture. Since they were already set up in the egg crating, all I had to do was transfer those sections ino a new container. So they went from being bin pests to being pets. They're so common in the building that it's kind of like keeping a cricket or a housefly as a pet! I'm interested in seeing how they do together and what sort of population density they'll tolerate.

These are also great to have free range in your home or animal area to control pest insects. They're great at it!

Wade

 

[That_Guy]

Kill em'...Kill em' all...

 

[Venom]

Yeah, I've enjoyed keeping a couple of these. They're just like widows, only with less serious venom.

 

[Vys]

Neat pictures.

 

[D-Man]

Update....

Originally posted by Wade
Yeah, I'm keeping the ones in the picture. Since they were already set up in the egg crating, all I had to do was transfer those sections ino a new container. So they went from being bin pests to being pets.
Wade

How are things going with these guys? I collected some of my house spiders. It's so damn difficult to ID them, though.

Dario

 

[Wade]

Still doing fine. I just throw a handful of crix in every week or so.

Wade

 

[Neo]

Neo

Oh god just looking at that sends chills through my body. Since small I've been afraid of most stinging bugs with multiple legs. I'm very sure i'm not the only one.

Well I don't really know what to say, I would just release them or something, those spiders aren't worth keeping, thats what i believe. I don't simply keep every spider that crawls into my house, only those that are odd and fascinating. They are communal as long as they don't wonder around or run out of food.

 

[Nick G]

Excellent Pics

I realise I'm sitting here responding to a thread over 3 years old,...but hey I actually discovered Arachnoboards by digging up info on Steatoda.I caught one once about 9 or 10 years ago and it consumed an earwig quite hungrily.False Widows were pretty abundant where I lived in, as were Black Widows to a degree.I've read and talked with a few spider experts on this,but Steatoda has the reputation of sometimes feeding on Black Widows.I've never seen that myself, and since they are both comb-footed cobweavers what would give the False Widow any advantage in this? Jeff Crawford said he wouldn't be surprised if Lactrodectus "turned the tables" on occasion.Anyone ever witnsessed this?

 

[Nick G]

My mistake

Excuse me, Rod Crawford in Burke Museum in WA,not Jeff.

 

[Randolph XX()]

they are the ones that help me get rid of lost roaches in house, i have plenty of their webs around my place