| The other spider the kids found is the one on the right. We put it in a small
aquarium and it happily munched away on grasshoppers we caught for it. Then I went on 4 weeks long service leave before Easter and
the kids really got into the collecting in a big way and unfortunately put several
other spiders in with this one, all of which had very short lives! |
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| This was one of the unfortunate ones. At present we have
one spider in this tank and we're not sure if it is the original one or
one like it!!
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The children found a cockroach which was supposed to be food for
this spider during the holidays. It survived the holidays however but not
the redback as you can see in the picture below when we finally put it in
the redback's tank. Despite being 10 times its size, overnight the
redback captured the cockroach in its web and has been feeding on it all
day!! |
| One of the children found a rather large female redback at the
bus stop as well and brought it to school.
As food has become scarce with the colder weather, I bought a box of
small crickets and she was most thrilled to be fed one of them today.
I
took a video of her which you can watch if you have Real Player. If not
you can click below to download it free!! |
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| Click here for the video of our
redback eating the cricket. |
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Here's the redback leaving her hiding spot behind a dead leaf to come
and capture the cricket. Below here she is having brought it back to her leaf and wrapping
it up for later.
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She now has a new home in a small tank too and seems quite happy in
there for now. One of the children also brought some spiders they found at home and
called them "white backs". We're not sure of their real name so
if anyone can identify them for us, it would be great.
Here's some pictures of them below. Click
here for a short video of them as well.
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4 June, 2000:
This is our newest spider. One of the children found it in the
garden and thought it was a Jeweled Spider. However, we found a book
that said it was a Bolas Spider. However we found out after she
built a web and the Bolas spider doesn't, that she is actually an
Araneus spider, to which the Bolas is related.
We fed it some bugs which you can se in the
picture but it didn't like them much. |
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We had been reading about how
the Bolas Spider throws a strand of silk with a sticky ball on the end to
catch its prey. Our Araneus didn't like to eat at all in captivity despite
feeding her all sorts of nice insects. |
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As you can see, it is a very weird looking spider with
all its bumps. It now has a nice big home in a big fish tank and has
actually changed colour to match its surroundings. It is a very clumsy
spider and falls on its back when it walks.
It has a very messy sort of web that you can see in the
picture below. We also took a video of the Araneus Spider.
Click here to have a look at it. |
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| Unfortunately,
she didn't survive too much longer, we think she may have been near the
end of her life span when we found her. A very interesting spider to
study. |
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The other big events were the laying of egg sacs
by by one of our Redbacks and another small brown spider that the kids
caught.
The small brown spider has an abdomen a bit like a
Redback but it lays a different shape sac. The picture above is of her 2nd
sac and we have some spiderlings in with her from her first sac. |
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The Redback's sac is a perfect sphere
and she is guarding it closely. You can see the remains of a grasshopper
she had for tea in the bottom of the photos.
The Redback on the left is the other baby. She hasn't laid any egg
sacs as she has never mated. The Redback can lay many egg sacs a long
while after mating has taken place. |
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This spider was sent to us by a fellow in
Tasmania. It is preserved in a small bottle of methylated spirits,
which is how you should keep your spiders if they die and you want
to keep them.
Of course it's best to let them go BEFORE they
die!! |
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