Baby Wolf Spiders
Thursday, 16 September 2010
The maker of this video, Vimeo user Byron caught several adult wolf spiders and was taking care of them and studying them. Two of the spiders produced egg cases and carried them around with them for several weeks, even constructing little web-nests where the mother and egg case would sit, motionless, protected from the world.Sadly, the mother spiders died, leaving their egg cases behind for Byron to take care of. Normally, the mother spider will open up the egg case and let the spiderlings out when they are ready to hatch; so after three weeks Byron opened them with tweezers and the baby spiders jumped out!
Wolf spiders are unique among spiders in that they provide parental care: the spiderlings will jump on the mother's back and ride on top of her for a week.... if one falls off, the mother will wait until it jumps back on again.
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