Wolf Spider "Couple" Cohabitation: Documenting the story here!

[spoper]

Technically not a couple yet, but I have two wolf spiders (Pardosa) in one enclosure.
A bit of backstory: l have had my male since August and he molted once already, he's a shy boy. A few days ago I found another Pardosa in my home, ever so slightly bigger and female. I moved my male into a bigger enclosure and let the female in. They checked each other out and there wasn't any aggression.

They really like hanging out on these wooden pieces, and often I see them sitting on the same piece, sometimes very close to one another. Really excited to see where this goes. I'll document how things go in this thread. For now, here are some pictures and videos. Sorry for the occasionally shaky camera. I have not yet set up a proper camera so I'm recording most of these with a macro lens on my phone and I can't always rest my hand or phone against a stable surface.

The female wants to kill me she reacts to my finger against the glass! The male never did this. Good thing that she doesnt display behaviour like this towards the male, only my finger!

Male Grooming, interrupted by the female:

The two meeting a few times:

The two meeting (now in vertical):

 

[Charliemum]

How cute are they, it all goes well.

 

[DaveM]

Great job! Looking forward to updates

 

[spoper]

Everyone's still fine! The female's personality is so very different, she's a ton more active and aggressive (to prey and my fingers through the glass). It's very cold here now so we don't have any insects so I was really desperate to fix her a meal and gave her one of these very long legged ceiling spiders. I was desperate because I couldnt possibly know how long ago she ate last, since I old found her recently. She is absolutely ravenous! She pounced on the spider so quick. She tore its legs off and after she was done with it, I could not locate the body

I tried feeding the male today with a much smaller spider but he's shy as ever. I figured I'll try to give it to the female and see what she does with it. I honestly did not expect her to show any interest because she's so fat from eating the bigger spider yesterday that she's sometimes dragging her fat butt as she moves... but nope, she is unstoppable, she immediately pounced on it and ate the new prey! Look at those fangs!


I am getting a tripod and an attachable macro lens so I can take better and stabler pictures and videos, I am excited to show more! For now, I leave you with a few more images of the female and a video of her eating a small spider:

 

[Charliemum]

Erm I don't know what to say probably not the best idea to feed your spiders spiders, I doubt you'll get praise for it on here .
For starters cellar spiders are amazing hunters your lucky it did not eat your female, you risc the life of your spiders by feeding other spiders. Secondly we love all spiders on here to feed one to another is not done . Please go online get some mealworms they last ages and can be fed off to your spider at all stages of the mealworms life (worm chrysalis and beetle) you can even keep them in your fridge so they will last longer 1 tub would probably last the spiders whole life you can even get maggots from a bate/fishing shop even cheaper they aren't a long term solution but will do in a pinch. Please just don't feed your spider spiders!

 

[spoper]

I understand why you wrote what you wrote and I see how why what I've done is controversial, but I really was desperate. I tried mealworms, crickets, weevils, flies and various insects I've found in- and outdoors but my male Pardosa wouldnt touch anything but mealmoths and drain flies - he wouldnt even touch the larva of a mealmoth.

Figured the female would be the same, and wanted to try something I havent before. I know cellar spiders are very good hunters, I have a lot of them in my home, I never kill or relocate them and just let them be, sometimes feed them insects even. I made sure they posed no risk, they were less than 1/3 the size of my Pardosas, and I was ready to remove them if needed.

 

[Charliemum]

I understand why you wrote what you wrote and I see how why what I've done is controversial, but I really was desperate. I tried mealworms, crickets, weevils, flies and various insects I've found in- and outdoors but my male Pardosa wouldnt touch anything but mealmoths and drain flies - he wouldnt even touch the larva of a mealmoth.

Figured the female would be the same, and wanted to try something I havent before. I know cellar spiders are very good hunters, I have a lot of them in my home, I never kill or relocate them and just let them be, sometimes feed them insects even. I made sure they posed no risk, they were less than 1/3 the size of my Pardosas, and I was ready to remove them if needed.

I understand and did not mean to sound harsh but yes definitely controversial.

I am a great lover of cellar spiders, I also leave them alone in my house I even had a female with an eggsac I had the joy of protecting from my cat once , she gave me the privilege of watching her sac hatch it was quite amazing so they hold a special place for me.

If your male is mature he won't eat often anyways, true spider mature males rarely do. They will occasionally when they really really need to but I have kept a few sp of true spiders (I love my native sp and will keep ones i find injured or skinny in my home) and all the mature males slowed their food intake right down once they matured. Some didn't eat at all . Unfortunately it's a part of keeping spiders.
I still suggest you get something for your female if she is trying to eat your finger then she would probably take whatever you gave her. Seen as they are a small sp I would go mini meal worm and pop it's head off before I offered it so it wouldn't bite the spider.

That sounds gruesome.... and it is but if you hold it with the tongs behind the head and roll the head across a hard surface it will just come off. That way the worm won't burrow or hurt the spider but it still wriggles. I do it on the side of a pot so I can chuck the heads when done. I always feel bad doing it but spider gotta eat Fruit flys are always good for them to chace too, I like to treat my tiny slings to them occasionally. They are easy to setup and keep too excelsior wood string stuff (sorry it's name escapes me) some Fruit fly powdered food and some pots. You can keep breeding from your original colony, full set up costs maybe £20 on ebay (been a while since I looked) you could probably do it cheaper if you already have mesh lid pots and once it gets going you'll have unlimited Fruit fly to feed off to your little spoods. If you get the small ones they are similar in size to drain flys

 

[spoper]

Thank you for the detailed info @Charliemum, I wasnt aware males dont eat much after maturing.

The food situation has resolved since thankfully - I managed to find two teeny tiny drain flies for my male and I think we both figured out feeding. I now understand where to place the prey and he knows what to do with it.

In the meanwhile I also found a fly and tried giving it to the female to see how she'd react. She did not hesitate to take it and eat it. She's not picky at all thankfully. I'll post vids and pics later, I managed to capture some amazing footage! Here's a sneak peek of the aftermath:


I shall also leave you this funny short video where the female forgot where her food was and tried to eat a piece of dirt:

(I did not intend for her to eat this larva, it's a mealmoth larva that's been living with the spiders for about a month now and neither seemed interested in it. It spend a lot of its time underground next to the glass in one spot, sometimes left and did a little pilgrimage around the enclosure only to return to his hidey place again. I dont know what happened that the female decided to kill it.)

Oh and as for cellar spiders, I have "rescued" a female with a massive sack of eggs just the other day and put her on a safe wall, she climbed all the way to the ceiling and the spiderlings hatched just yesterday! I wish they were lower so I could take a picture of them.

 

[Charliemum]

Thank you for the detailed info @Charliemum, I wasnt aware males dont eat much after maturing.

The food situation has resolved since thankfully - I managed to find two teeny tiny drain flies for my male and I think we both figured out feeding. I now understand where to place the prey and he knows what to do with it.

In the meanwhile I also found a fly and tried giving it to the female to see how she'd react. She did not hesitate to take it and eat it. She's not picky at all thankfully. I'll post vids and pics later, I managed to capture some amazing footage! Here's a sneak peek of the aftermath:
View attachment 465596

I shall also leave you this funny short video where the female forgot where her food was and tried to eat a piece of dirt:

(I did not intend for her to eat this larva, it's a mealmoth larva that's been living with the spiders for about a month now and neither seemed interested in it. It spend a lot of its time underground next to the glass in one spot, sometimes left and did a little pilgrimage around the enclosure only to return to his hidey place again. I dont know what happened that the female decided to kill it.)

Oh and as for cellar spiders, I have "rescued" a female with a massive sack of eggs just the other day and put her on a safe wall, she climbed all the way to the ceiling and the spiderlings hatched just yesterday! I wish they were lower so I could take a picture of them.

Awww that great news x2 spiders settled and baby's on the ceiling that's great ! I am really happy for you

If your lucky you will get to see the cellar baby's do a mass moult, quite an amazing thing to see little legs pop all over the place

Gl to you and your growing spider family

 

[spoper]

Here's another drop of vids and pics! They've approached each other multiple times curiously, I have footage of it too just havent gotten to cutting and uploading it. I can't wait to show you!

These ones are the male being a very good hunter:

 

[The Snark]

Alpine east of San Diego. A vast unkempt lawn next to a stable. An agelenid web every couple of feet and countless thousands of lycos patrolling. Literally countless. I couldn't walk out on the lawn without my boots collecting spiders. I suppose it was a free for all predation fest but most certainly a killing zone for the ubiquitous flies stables attract. No telling if peaceful cohabitation was going on.

 

[spoper]

Here's them checking each other out in two videos. These both lasted hours, so I just cut together the parts where they actually moved!

 

[DonaldJ]

Very handsome creatures, thanks for sharing. I'll have to read up on wolf spiders; I thought they were much larger than the ones you've shown.

 

[spoper]

Thank you @DonaldJ - these are Pardosa genus, they're a much smaller species than the "average" Lycosidae, apparently. I've seen some quite large ones in my area (I'll post a pic of the larger ones I found tomorrow), originally I was hoping the male I took in first was a juvenile of a larger species!

 

[spoper]

As promised, here are the pictures and a bonus video of the larger species I found.

View attachment qHFNu4B.mp4

 

[spoper]

I have good and bad news.
The good news is that the female molted this morning (didn't catch her doing it unfortunately) and that she now has a visible epi. Someone said on Imgur when I posted pics of her that she's not in her final instar due to no visible epi, and that she probably has 1-2 molts in her. Didn't expect it to happen so soon.

Bad news is, I think she's dead or dying. I found her curled up and completely unresponsive, not near her old skin. By the looks of it, she was trying to find a different hiding place (I read a few people saying that they found their tarantulas post-molt curled up not next to their old skin too, apparently). I think she might be dehydrated and I read about emergency rehydration for tarantulas, and that people dip their face in water, making sure their abdomen is not dipped (because their lungs are there), so I'm trying to do that.

It's been a few hours, and she's not showing signs of life.

Is there anything else I can do for her at this point? How many hours until I have to let go of all hope, and accept that she's gone?

Update: It's been 7+ hours, I think it's time for me to accept that she's gone

 

[Charliemum]

I have good and bad news.
The good news is that the female molted this morning (didn't catch her doing it unfortunately) and that she now has a visible epi. Someone said on Imgur when I posted pics of her that she's not in her final instar due to no visible epi, and that she probably has 1-2 molts in her. Didn't expect it to happen so soon.

Bad news is, I think she's dead or dying. I found her curled up and completely unresponsive, not near her old skin. By the looks of it, she was trying to find a different hiding place (I read a few people saying that they found their tarantulas post-molt curled up not next to their old skin too, apparently). I think she might be dehydrated and I read about emergency rehydration for tarantulas, and that people dip their face in water, making sure their abdomen is not dipped (because their lungs are there), so I'm trying to do that.

It's been a few hours, and she's not showing signs of life.

Is there anything else I can do for her at this point? How many hours until I have to let go of all hope, and accept that she's gone?

Update: It's been 7+ hours, I think it's time for me to accept that she's gone

I am so sorry for your loss , its so sad after you tried so hard , unfortunately one of the problems we face as spider keepers is not knowing. It is extremely frustrating, and hard on the feelings . I have been keeping 3 years n I still get upset whenever I loose one of my spiders, it never goes away, and because it's due to a moult it's even harder to guess it could of been dehydration it could of been something internal that went wrong during. Whatever it was I am sorry for your loss and because I couldn't help.

 

[spoper]

Thought it's time for an update. Some time after the passing of my female, I've found another one. I observed similar curious behaviour from both the new female and the male, they checked each other out a few times and such.
In the beginning of April, my male also died from a bad molt. I hope this is just bad luck and not me messing something up. Since then, I've had only the new female, who, at the beginning of this month started making a sort of mat. I thought at first maybe this is the famed molting mat, so I set up my camera for the night and found her walking around in the enclosure with a sad, misshapen grey sac in her mouth that she ate soon afterwards.

(the video is still processing for the next half an hour or so, so unfortunately it's only got crispy 240p until then)