Our little warehouse facility never ceases to surprise me.
A while back (two weeks ago), i found what i believed to be a male L. geometricus, without any other type of confirmation i introduced him to the female L. geometricus web.
Needless to say he ran for dear life, i had heard that the males of this species will sometimes just hang around the web for a couple of days until the female is ready to mate (IMPORTANT: i did not witness any abdomen movements-that should have been give away)
I extracted him from the web and re-introduced him again the following night.
Unfortunately i forgot him there (I was really tired that day)
Well, he became a meal.
This past Wednesday i found what i thought to be the female L. geometricus in the same storage unit where i had previously found the male.
No hourglass, and she was a little purple/brown.
After some research i came to the conclusion; based on body markings form the now deceased male, and descriptions and pictures that i saw along the way, that she was a Steatoda grossa, another Theriddidae, and I'm very happy to have her join the growing collection.
Too bad i fed the male to an actual Widow... thinking they would mate.
Steatoda grossa's bite can be medically significant as well, which means I just have to be cautious.
Just thought it would be fun to share this as many of you may recall the excitement of finding, identifying and keeping a new spider, bug etc.
Pictures to come up fairly soon.
balam
The Steatoda passed last night.
I don't know what it could have been aside from a cold night, even so, she was kept around 70 F.
Found in the death curl position around 6:10 AM.
I now have all the spiders (except the H. carolinensis) in a shelving unit that is kept around 75 F and the humidity varies from enclosure to enclosure.
Steven
Steatoda grossa tend to stick together like a mafia family ..at least seems so when the conditions allow for it. Obviously, prey must be plentiful, there needs to be some structural delineation in their living space, warmth, h2o(yet very little is needed..but it has to be there) ..etc, etc.
I collected a couple smaller ..1st to 3rd instar slings... but didnt get them in the pics ...bummer.
The teen-age kids ... an immature male, a mature male(maybe not part of the family), freshly molted sweet 16 and an immature female.
Fresh molt ...she was really weak. Love how blue grossa are right after they molt.
The big mature male...
Head (current) of the household...
This group I collect from under a plastic garbage can that I have been composting in. Wood lice are the constant food source (if at all needed) with cricks, pedes, wigs and other spiders constantly taking shelter within the space also. Two other specie of spiders were living directly with the grossa family... Pholcus phalangioides and those tiny "wall spiders" (i have an id somewhere here..but lazy). Prey carcasses were NOT to be found. This tells me that the breakdown/cleaning cycle is really quick. Moisture keeps the spent prey soft..wigs, wood lice, rollys, cricks all take care of the rest. IMO... this quick breakdown (and perpetual food baiting) allows grossa groups to live under tight, moist(ish) structure. In dry spaces, I usually find the large fem alone with only slings and some juvs. Males dont stick round cause they dont have the lifespan to wait for the slings to sexually mature and as for big mommy...she most likely will not accept any more callers.
My goal now with grossa and other Steatoda is to keep them in self cycling groups. Ive done this in smaller dry enclosures, but was not able to get a diverse group ...due to obvious reasons.
