Trigger warning: If you hate spiders in bulk, there is a photo below that you may not want to be put to the trouble of unseeing. (So frustrating—as I was putting this together, I accidentally stumbled on the secret of integrating suitably sized images into text [and I repeat, I am a total idiot]. Yet for visibility purposes, I am forced to post a huge and blurry image.) Anyway…
Exciting news on the spider front, as though my previous posts on this subject have not already left you trembling and overheated. I forgot to mention that while the spider the Lady Florence Paget was crouching next to the ex-earwig, the spider Mae West was supervising a far more interesting bundle; namely, an egg sac. Today, the spider Mae West is a mother. The sac has dissolved from a smooth webby bolus into a crumbly ball of adorable little spiders (see attached image). Very exciting.
The spider Mae West is eying them closely. Sadly, I fear that this is not the eye of maternal care, but motion detecting. And that once they start to wander away, she will regard them as snacks. Perhaps, as they take their first tentative steps into the world, spiderlings are too small to be recognizable or of interest, and will thus make their escape (and so it is that spiders are allowed to continue in the world). Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so. But M&Ms are pretty damn small, and we do not disdain them. I know it’s the numbers. Only so many M&Ms you can eat at a sitting, while the rest roll frantically under the couch. I admit this will allow me to feel less of a pang than I might when, at the end of the season, the spiders inevitably fade away.
Update within update: I’m very pleased with my gory scenario, but I went online and learned that the first few days, they all stay near the ball, having their first molt and chewing their way out of the silk. Mom watches over and helps. Then “the spiderlings begin to disperse gradually away. This is necessary to avoid competition for food and prevent cannibalism among the hungry siblings.” Manners, kids. Please.
