Saturday, June 2, 2007

Black Widow Spiderlings

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I found Susannah in my garage several weeks ago, and I have been keeping her in a small cage while I figure out how to take pictures of her safely (for both her sake and mine).


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Apparently I did a very good job of making her feel at home because she made an egg sac within about 1 week of her coming into our care. Spiders have the ability to save semen in their abdomen and wait until there are favorable environmental conditions before laying eggs. Susannah made two egg sacs in about three weeks (between 200 & 800 eggs).


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The spiderlings seen here are the result of opening the first egg sac. I put Suzannah and her eggs into the refrigerator for about an hour so that she would go to sleep and I could remove the eggs from the cage. The first egg sac had what I would estimate to be about 150 spiderlings inside it. I saved about 1/4 of them to take pictures of.



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I still have the mother, as well as 3 spiderlings that I am hoping will survive to adulthood. If I can manage to get some more photos of these spectacular creatures I will be sure to post them.


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I in no way suggest that you try to take pictures of venomous creatures.