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Spider Nursery

Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning, to find a new batch of eggs from the Momma Spider in my window.  My first thought was that the spider was slowly letting a few babies hatch, and then replacing the eggs in a cocoon.  I was wrong.  I read up on the house spider & it turns out the mother can have multiple egg sacs in a year…up to 19 egg sacs!  That is over 1900 babies.  Of course, most of them do not make it to adulthood.

Kinda cool…I have about 12 tiny baby spiders hanging out with Mom.  Two of them have moved to their own webs.  They start out the size of a pinhead.   The babies who have their own web are the size of about half a pencil erasure.   I can actually notice them get bigger within a couple of days.  We basically have a little spider nursery in the window now.

Mom is always busy!  She keeps a clean web, which requires a lot of moving around of debris & spinning the web. I watched her lower the remains of an unlucky June bug seven inches, to the ground, in about 5 seconds.

And, Spud, our Creative Director, has named the opportunistic spider.  You remember?  The  dark brown spider who moved in below our Momma House Spider to catch all the debris & insects falling from her web?  This spider is rather creepy looking, so I was sort of amused when Spud named it “Cinderella”.  Cinderella is doing quite well for herself!

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coccinella septempunctata

This sounds like a made up word or a really catchy nonsense song, but it actually is the scientific name for our much loved Ladybug.  Girls seem to feel a soft spot for ladybugs, because let’s face it-they are pretty cute!  Did you know that farmers and gardeners  love them,  too?  Ladybugs begin life as a larvae, a stage they live in for about 3-7 weeks.  During those weeks, the larvae can eat 5000 aphids EACH.  Aphids are bug that destroy crops, so farmers and gardeners love having this little beetle around.

When a Ladybug feels threatened, it might play dead.  It has another interesting line of defense. Secreted from the joints in its legs is a foul smelling substance.  In times of stress, the Ladybug secretes this substance, causing the potential attacker to say, “yuck!” and find a better meal somewhere else.

Am I the only one who has so much fun watching spiders?:)

As I reported in March, I have been letting a house spider live in my window for over a year now.  It is very fascinating to watch one spider for so many months. I did not realize how carefully & methodically the house spider keeps her web clean, gently lowering any debris & moving things about.

On May 29, I woke up to about 40 tiny eggs scattered about the egg sac. They were a bit smaller than a grain of salt.  It looked like the mother spider had suspended them in webbing.  A few days later, they were gone & the egg sac had been dropped out of the web.  I was puzzled because I did not see any baby spiders.

Tonight, there are 2 baby spiders tending the web with Mom.  I am not sure where they have been or where the other babies are! 

Interestingly enough, a smaller spider built a web under Bobette’s web a few months ago. He catches all the rejects from the higher web.

Well, back to watching Mom & her babies!

Yes, I know…it is March!  I am behind on my Bug O’ the Month. Even so, we are going to call Bob & Bobette the February Bug (In March).  As it turns out, Bob might have been a Bobette all along, so we are mixed up anyway.

An activity I am naturally inclined towards is watching bugs, trying to determine why they are doing certain activities.  You might say I like coming up with hypotheses about their behavior.  I can watch bugs for a long time & have had this hobby since I was little.  Do you like bugs?  If so, let me know about a bug that you have watched or that you like.

When Bob showed up in the corner of my kitchen window, I let him stay.  You have to be careful of some spiders because they can be poisonous or have a painful bite.  Most spiders will not bite unless provoked.  Bob looked like he was just waiting for a meal.  Plus, he was so high up, he could not hurt anyone from his perch.   I decided that he & I could co-exist.  Since the window screen had a small hole in it, I thought he could help me out & catch any wayward insects coming through the screen.   Bob was a house spider, or Parasteatoda tepidariorum.
One thing that surprised me about Bob was how long he lived!  He stayed in the window corner from April to late September.  I kind of became used to him hanging out there & started to really like watching him.  One day, I woke up & Bob was dead in his web.  I was sort of sad, but was glad I was able to watch him for so long.  I had no idea house spiders could live that long.

When I was cleaning his web out, I noticed a spider that looked just like Bob on the inside of the window pain, with an egg sac!  Just like the photo above.  Hmmmm, for this same species of spider to appear the day Bob died was too much of a coincidence.  I decided that this species of spider must kill their mate, like the black widow.  I named the new spider, Bobette (I know…I am SO original).

Bobette has been in my window all winter.  And, the amazing thing is that even when snow came in through the cracks and the wind howled, she stayed alive.  Sometimes, I thought she was dead, but then I would notice she moved every month or so.  Just lately, I noticed that she appears to be shrinking in size.

I went out of town this weekend & when I came back Bobette had moved her egg sac because someone had disturbed the window.  She looks very tiny now.  I am watching for her eggs to hatch.  I can’t believe I have been watching this type of spider for a YEAR in my window.  I think that is kind of cool.

I also read up on this spider for my post.  I cannot find any information on the female killing her male mate, but I did read that females can be very aggressive towards each other.  It is possible that Bob was always a female & Bobette was a competitor for the window habitat. Maybe Bob & Bobette fought and Bob lost.

Anyway, I will let you know if I witness the eggs hatching.  According to Wiki, I could have hundreds of Bobettes running around.  Uh oh! 

Like all bugs dear to my heart, the click beetle has a story behind it.  When I was about 17 years old, I heard a pop while standing on my parent’s back patio. I went looking for the noise & imagine my surprise when I located an odd looking bug that appeared to have huge eyes on one end!  As I bent down to inspect this beautiful little bug, I heard the pop again & he flipped into the air.  What surprised me the most, was that I had lived seventeen years & never ran into a click beetle before!  Fast forward to 2008, when I led a group of girls on a hike to Mississippi Paliscades Park near Galena, IL.  They called me over to see if I knew what kind of strange bug was on the picnic table.  It was my old friend the click beetle.  I looked very impressive that I knew the bug but actually it was only the second time I had seen one!

Here are some impressive statistics about the click beetle:

• They are also called snapping beetles or skipjacks
• They usually make the clicking noise when they flip over from landing on their back.
• They can pop 6 inches into the air.  whoa!
• They spend the winter underground
• The official name is Alaus oculatus
• They like rotting logs
• The adults eat flower nectar
• The larvae of the click beetle can be a big pest for crops!
• They can be found throughout the Eastern US as far West as South Dakota