Sometime during the wee hours of Aug. 3, 2008 Arachne's first egg case hatched! She is now the mother of a couple hundred babies (I'm not sure how "proud" she is, she seems to be ignoring them!). I noticed the egg case was on the floor of her enclosure this morning and then I saw the babies hanging on the web. It was interesting to see that they are dark orange with a black spot on the abdomen, I had thought they would be black like their mom. I assume the spiderlings with the larger abdomens are females and the ones with the longer, thinner ones are males. It would be interesting to keep them for a couple of days and see how they develop, however baby spiders don't make good brothers and sisters --- they eat each other! Later today I will take them far out into the woods where they can live but not be a threat to anyone.
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