Yesterday the first of the spiderlings had its second moult, 27 days after hatching. There is quite a variety in size, as some appear to be more successful at hunting than others!

 

I'm keeping an eye the second egg sac, as if it is fertile and follows a similar hatching period to the first, it should hatch any day soon.

A few new photos. First is the empty egg sac - I left it a couple of weeks after the spiderlings hatched, then opened it up as I was curious to see what was inside. There are a few spiderlings that didn't hatch, along with what I think are the remnants of the eggs?

 

 

Next are the first shots of the features that give this spider its name. First the two large eyes at the front of the spiders face, giving rise to the name 'Ogre-faced Spider'. Next is the first net I have managed to photograph. This was tricky as they are so tiny, and the net is smaller still!

 

 

The next two shots are after I gave the tank a misting with water. Most of the spiderlings found a surface and started to drink from the droplets. The last photo is a spiderlings walking along a twig, they are all legs!

Day 17 since hatching and today I spotted the first 'net' - one of the spiderlings was holding its front legs closer together and I could just make out the tiny net hung between its front legs. No chance to take a photo today, but hopefully I'll get one soon of a net.

They are continuing to feed on the fruit flies I am capturing for them.

Two days after the first moult, and two weeks since hatching, the spiderlings that have so far moulted are now catching and eating their prey (small fruit flies). They seem to be waiting for the flies to come within reach and then just grabbing them, or they catch them if they have got caught in the fine silk 'communal' threads that the spiderlings hang around on. The prey is wrapped before eating, and the remains dropped to the floor when they are finished.

Today I noticed the first moult had occurred since emerging from the egg sac twelve days previously. The body shape post moult has changed into a miniature version of the adult. The abdomen is now longer and thinner and the legs also appear to be longer.

No food has been taken, but I have occasionally misted their jar with rain water.

Spiderlings! Exactly 3 months to the day after laying, the first of the two egg sacs hatched. About 20 spiderlings emerged from a small hole in the egg. Unfortunately I missed the actual hatching, but it happened sometime in the evening of the 17th August.

The spiderlings dispersed slightly within the jar and created a series of fine silk threads which they hung around on. I didn't want to disturb them by trying to measure them, but these little guys are tiny, about 2-3mm in body length. I popped some small fruit flies in with them, but they showed no signs of hunting or feeding.

After laying her second egg sac, she resumed hunting and feeding again. On 20th July I decided to release her into my garden as she hadn't eaten for about a week and looked like she was getting ready to lay again. I didn't know if the conditions I was keeping her and the eggs sacs in were suitable for them to hatch, so thought I would let her lay the next one 'naturally' in my garden somewhere.

A second egg sac! She followed a similar pattern to before, eating voraciously and getting larger in girth after laying the first egg sac. She then stopped eating about 10 days before laying.

During the process she hung suspended upside down and holding onto a silk thread with her front legs. The other legs rotated the sac while she covered it with silk from her spinnerets.

As usual interesting things never happen on the weekend, but despite it being a work day I grabbed my 'proper' camera and got a few shots before heading of to work.

That evening she had anchored the egg sac near the top of the tank close to where she had made it.

You can just about make out the sac behind and below her in this photo.

I was expecting the female to stop eating and die after laying the egg sac, however today she spun a new net and was hunting and feeding again!

Note the reduced body size!

This morning I woke up to find her upside down and covering what I soon realised was an egg sac with silk! When I got home from work that evening she had moved it down to a twig near the bottom of the tank and anchored it down with silk.

A couple of videos that I grabbed with my phone - you can see in the second one that it is already changing colour from white to brown.

30th April - 10th May

 

She continued to feed well on the crickets, sometimes capturing and eating two in a day. She got larger and more 'swollen' over a couple of weeks and then stopped feeding around 10th May.

These photos were taken on 12th May.

A crop of those amazing eyes!

Note the eyes on the top of her head.

Two days after moving in her new home she built a net and started hunting. She caught her first cricket and wrapped and consumed it. She wrapped it well in silk and took a few hours to suck all the juices out of it, before dropping the shrunken remains on the floor of the tank beneath her.

I took a trip to a pet store today and purchased a small glass tank to house the spider in. I also got a tub of small crickets for her to feed on. She seemed to quickly make herself at home amongst the twigs.

New home - the carrot is food for the crickets, not the spider!

I spotted another Net-casting Spider on the corner of our building at work, just outside the entrance door. The building was due to be sprayed for bugs soon, so I took her home as I was also interested in photographing her and watching her hunt.

She settled in quickly, capturing a moth I put in her temporary home within the first hour!


These were some quick iPhone shots, but it shows the net quite nicely.

Wrapping the prey.

Dinner time!

Introduction

Growth and Development of Deinopis sp.

This blog will be my record of the development of some Deinopis spiderlings that I am rearing.

It all started with the capture of ‘mum’ at my work place in Perth, Western Australia. I had noticed an unusual spider around March 2013 outside our building at work and discovered it was a Net-casting Spider. These spiders are also known as Ogre-faced Spiders due to the huge, prominent eyes at the front of their head. They are pretty cool spiders, as they don’t build a web in which they sit and catch their prey, rather they create a ‘net’ which they attach to their front legs and cast over passing prey items.

Here is some further information on them from the Australian Museum.