If this were a horror movie scenario, I’d be doomed. There I am, puttering around in the lab, feeding my pretties, when I notice that one of the egg sacs from Texas has hatched out, and there in the container was a small swarm of babies. “Oooh,” I cooed, and took them over to a clear spot on the bench so I could sort them out. I took the lid off and set it to the side — no worries with these little guys, they’re slow and content to just rest there on their web, and I took a few baby pictures.

Then…little did I know but this container also held the mama spider. She had been lurking, hanging from the lid, and I hadn’t even realized that there was a large adult in the container.

On the lid…that I had just mindlessly set aside without even looking at it. She crept out and pounced, leaping upon my exposed right hand, racing across it, probably looking for a good vein to rip into! That was the first I noticed her, an unexpected tickling across the back of my hand. She’s a big one, too, so I just scooped her into a handy plastic box. And there she is, looking a bit pissed off.

I named her Texanne, Texanne of the Texas triangulosas, and this was the best photo I could get while she was furiously skittering about. I’ve now moved her into a spacious cage with some flies to nibble on. Once she has calmed down, I’ll try to get some good photos of her abdominal pattern.

But yeah, now I’ve got a lot of Steatoda triangulosa, unexpectedly. That’s fine, they’re pretty and elegant, and seem to be doing well in the lab.

I got these new spiders from Texas last week, and they aren’t adjusting very well. Usually what the new gals do when I put them in a nice big roomy empty cage is that they start filling the space with webbing, pick a nice spot somewhere in the middle, and hang upside down, waiting for it to start raining flies. Not these spiders. There a few short patches of cobweb here and there, but mainly they sit huddled in a corner and don’t bother coming out. Compare Lantana today with Lantana last week — she seems to have scarcely moved.

I guess I can’t blame her. How would you feel if I picked you up in Texas and hauled you all the way up to Minnesota in November? It sounds cruel, even to me, and I prefer my northern state.

Yes, it’s snowing right now. But that’s outside! These spiders are all in a nice warm lab with a 14/10 light dark cycle!

Easy. They’re in my house.

It’s been consistently cool out here in Minnesota — temperatures have been right around 0°C, we’ve had a little light rain, a little snow. It’s not a happy time for spiders outdoors, and not at all good for their prey. The mosquitos are mostly dead! I see an occasional fly, but mostly the local arthropods are busy diapausing or retired to refugia or migrating away, while some are in their larval stages hiding away in lakes and streams. It’s not easy being a spider right now.

Mary of the piercing eyes spotted these little ones spinning away in out of the way places in our kitchen, though. They’re tiny, little more than dots, but they’d put up barely visible webs under a windowsill, possibly hoping to catch the rare fruit fly from the produce we keep on the counter. I had to zoom in with my camera lens to recognize them, and yes, they’re Parasteatoda.

They’re lucky, now they get to go into my lab where they’ll get a more reliable diet.

P.S. They’re not all in my house. There are some hanging out in your house, too.

This morning I set up some housing for a few of my new Texas imports, moving them out of their cramped vials and into big roomy spaces with cardboard frames. As usual, they were a bit frantic and were scurrying all over the place at first — I found the easiest way to shift them was to let them come out onto my hand, and then hold them gently over their new digs, and often they’d just drop a dragline and rappel down into their new home, and if they didn’t, a gentle nudge with a paintbrush would send them on their way.

They’re still a little bit stressed. After running around in circles for a bit, they found a comfy corner of the frame and just hunkered down and refused to move further. I left them a few flies and then took some photos before leaving them alone to settle in. I assume they’ll saturate the space with webbing and then hang somewhere comfortable, but that’ll take a few days.

Here are a few photos of them sullenly occupying a corner. They are all Steatoda triangulosa.

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Oh no. Even warm cozy Earth isn’t safe from the nihilism of the void. Here’s a story about parasitic wasps that lay their eggs on spiders. It’s another horrible tale of zombie arthropods, their endocrine system hijacked by wasp larvae to force them to build a nice silken web to house the wasp.

After the web is spun, the nearly mature wasp overlord injects the spider with poison, finally killing it. But in terms of free will, Eberhard says, the spider has been dead all along.

“Once the spider has been stung by the female wasp, it’s effectively reproductively dead,” Eberhard tells Newscripts. “It’s maybe going to live for another couple of weeks, but it now has that egg on it, and later the larva, and so it’s done for.”

Unfortunately for the spider, it doesn’t end with death. After killing the spider, the newly hatched wasp regurgitates digestive fluid onto the host body and sucks out its insides for nutrients. Dracula, surely, would be proud.

We live in a dark universe, obviously.

Here, have a few. These are from my collection of juvenile P. tepidariorum.

I can tell this one is going to be a big boy.

Webs! This one is an artist.

While this one is looking at me and making mystical gestures.

Hey, I’ve had dozens and dozens of trick-or-treaters come to my house tonight, and I’m nearly out of candy. Would it be OK if I started handing out spiders?

…who’s the fairest of them all?