She sat on a tuffet,
Eating of curds and whey;
There came a little spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frighten’d Miss Muffet away.
A few days ago, my son came to me saying there was a spider on the kitchen floor, “…and it looks like a tarantula spiderling!” Thinking I had an escaped spiderling situation, I rushed in and had a look. Well, it certainly did look like one of our baby tarantulas, so I placed a cup over it and took a quick inventory; all were accounted for.
So, I prepped a small enclosure with coco fiber and a piece of bark and moved it into the new home. My wife quickly identified the little guy as a Tiger Wolf Spider, Tigrosa aspersa.
Lupe, the Tiger Wolf Spider, checking out her new digs.
We fed it a cricket, provided some fresh water, and decided to keep it until spring. It had been in the house a while, and the season changes had become obscure. After a few days, it started tunneling, which most female wolf spiders do, and within a day, an egg sac was spun. Our little friend was a female.
As I write this, she is carrying the sac around with her abdomen and spinnerettes.
Lupe, the Tiger Wolf Spider, emerges from her tunnel with her egg sac.
So, what to do?
Was she fertile when she wove the sac? It’s also way early, and thanks to the indoor world, she thinks it’s early summer. But, no worries. If the sac is fertilized, the spiderlings will stay atop her abdomen until they are ready to go off on their own. Though keeping and observing this little spider we call “Lupe” is fascinating, we have decided to let her and her spiderlings, if any, go in Spring, when the hatching is due anyway.
