I’m still trying to work out the biology of nest building in my spiders — I’ve got some that assemble cunning little nests out of wood shavings, and some that do not. Someday I’ll have to figure out whether this is a different species from P. tepidariorum or not.
Cute, hey? I’ve been looking at spider architecture for a while, and am rather impressed with their work.
I suspect it might be P. tabulata, but I’ve got to do more experiments to be sure. I say more about it on my Patreon page.
Can you do DNA testing to determine the species on spiders? I imagine cost is still a factor, but are there other factors preventing you from using it?
A good undergrad project would be to offer them chips of different sizes and colors to determine the purpose(s) of the incorporation of items into the web. You might be able to find meaningful (possibly genetic) differences between individuals.