The Spider Blog

16th November: Well, through my own naivety I nearly screwed up massively. Spying a tasty bug a couple of days ago, I trapped it in a glass and brought it in for Svetlana to eat. Only when I'd dropped it in the web, did I realise there was a problem. She ran down, took one look at it, swung away on a strand, Indiana Jones style and legged it round the window sill as fast as she could. That's when I realised I'd put a spider killing parasitic wasp in her web. I had to extract the thing, and get it outside. I'm now reading up about wasps, but it was almost too late. Fortunately, no harm was done, and I managed to say sorry with a very large fly last night.

9th November: She's managed to find a few mosquitos to keep her going, but food is fast running out as the winter hits. I'm going to make a trip to the big petshop to see if I can find some tasty bugs to feed her through the winter..

4th November: There's a third egg sac, apparently deposited last night while I was away. Time to see if she'll rebuild the web.

2nd November. There's not been too many updates recently. That's mainly because she's done nothing much during the last few weeks. It's a bit hard to write an informative and interesting blog on a spider, when it has such an inbuilt capability to do absolutely nothing for weeks on end.

18th Oct. A lacewing bites the dust. Svetlana scurried down in an instant, incapacitated the lacewing, injected it with digestive enzymes and left it for a few hours. Then she came back and started to suck the juices from the exoskelton. She's still supping it as I write this.

17th: She's been eating well, as you can tell by the growth. She had at least three mosquitos tonight, and a small fly. I wonder if another male will show up soon? The second photo is of a spider on the opposite side of the same window who caught a HUGE fly.

9th: She's laying another egg sack! This is so exciting! that must definitely have been a male I saw a week ago. My kitchen will be a mess of baby spiders come april....

8th October: Food worries have proven unfounded, as she's caught TWO mosquitos tonight! She's put one aside for later, and is currently munching away on the first one.

7th October: The web is well and so are the eggs, but there's a major problem for Svetlana. Winter is setting in and the food supplies are dwindling. She's caught nothing for three days. Now spiders should be able to go several months without grub, but the lack of prey may prove an issue if it continues. A warm spell and a few more insects must be her best chance of making it through the winter.

4th October: Sorry about the break, but I was away for a few days. As you can tell from the pictures, she's grown massively in size. I wonder if she might be pregnant again. The second picture shows the debris under the web. There's the remains of a lacewing, a large housefly and a lot of spiderpoo. The web is now utterly huge, covering most of my window.

26th: Not a lot to report. The web is repaired, and she looks fairly content. I'm off on business for a few days, but if anything should happen, I'm sure my family will report it.

24th: I've had an email from a chap called Mark, who says that the spider is not a common house spider at all, but actually a Zygiella x-notata or missing sector spider. This would make sense, as the web is certainly missing a sector, and the behaviour matches that in this article. The bad news about this is that it means the eggs will now overwinter and not hatch till about April or May, unless the warmth of the house fools them into hatching early. In today's picture, she's literally wrestling the legs off a large mosquito that strayed too close to the death zone.

22nd: There's a male in the window frame opposite! Maybe the recent feeding up that my spider has been enjoying has left her wanting more babies. She's certainly bigger than she was before. Is it pregnancy or just over indulgence in flies? Pictures to follow.

21st: She caught a hoverfly today! It was a swift and clinical death. The dry and empty corpse was left on the windowsill less than two hours after the initial contact. It never had a chance. She's looking rather bloated and full at the minute. The egg sack is unchanged.

20th: A fantastic new web. It's huge and covers about half my kitchen window. My father took this dramatic picture today. The eggs remain where they are, and as yet there are no indications of when we'll hear the pitter-patter of thousands of tiny feet! Can't be too long now.

19th September 2006: According to my Father, who witnessed the whole shocking and brutal event, the spider caught a large fly some time yesterday evening whilst I was out, and had devoured the entire carcass in less than an hour. She was clearly hungry. Tonight, the web is tatty, but she looks well, and the egg sack is clearly darker than before! It's getting pretty exciting. One person has suggested that the act of reproduction means that she's going to die, but as she's made a new web today, I think she seems to be preparing for a life after parethood. Maybe someone could clear this up for me? Email me if you know.

My girlfriend is particularly upset that I have become the father of hundreds of little spiders. I explained that none of this would have happened if she'd only had a few more legs. It didn't help things.

18th September 2006: The consensus of opinion is that the spider in question is a common house spider. There's an excellent article on their lifestyle and behaviour here. This article doesn't say exactly how long the gestation period is for the eggs, but approximately, I should expect the eggs to hatch within the silk in the next few days. The baby spiders should then spend several further days eating each other and the silk until the fittest few escape into my kitchen. In today's picture, you can clearly see the tube shaped retreat on the left of the picture, where the spider hides when it feels threatened. Last night, she built a small new web, her first since before the eggs were laid. I'll try to take a picture of that tonight when the light outside drops low enough. She still doesn't have a name, but I'll put a review of the best suggestions up when I've collected a few more! Keep emailing me with information or questions, or even just spidery chit chat... it's a fabulous learning curve!