A few spiders take nurturing to the next level by transporting their egg sacs and then caring for their freshly fledged spiderlings. Mother wolf spiders hold her egg sacs on their spinnerets, the silk-making structures at the end of their abdomen.
Holding their egg sacs in this manner, though, is often not a successful defense tactic; when scientists hatched these egg sacs in the lab, they discovered that a high majority had been parasitized by wasps.
So, why do wolf spider moms drag their egg sacs around and why do baby spiders stay on their mother?
Overall, baby spiders stay on their mother spider’s back for safety and security. The majority of wolf spider species carry their spiderlings on their back due to safety. They want to keep the spiderlings safe until they are able to fend for themselves.
It also allows the moms to hunt while still being there when their dozens or hundreds of spiderlings hatch. Once they have hatched, these spiderlings crawl on their mother’s legs and piggyback around with her until she pushes them out of the egg sac.
The first layer of spiderlings will adhere to her abdomen’s unique knobbed hairs, whereas the top part will attach to their siblings beneath. A colony of spiderlings can spend over a week riding around with their mother.
Spiderlings don’t really need to eat right away after hatching, however, their mother will make frequent visits to the water to keep her spiderlings alive.
Spider moms go to great lengths to ensure the safety of their spiderlings, from egg sac guarding to piggy-back rides.
In general, Spiderlings will stay on their mother’s back for two to four weeks, and they do so in order to protect themselves. However, if one of the spiders falls off before then (before 2-4 weeks), the mother spider does not try to retrieve it. Instead, as soon as all of them are volitionally enough they’ll leave her back at the end of those carrying periods.
The mother wolf spider not just to carries her offspring about on her back for so many days after they have been hatched, but she still keeps the egg sack with her spinnerets until these spiderlings are old enough to find food on their own.
Indeed, when you see how playful these spiders are with their offspring, you’ll understand why they’re nicknamed wolf spiders.
Their bite is similarly un-wolf-like and small, and they will not bite unless you chase them down.
Perhaps their name comes from the fact that, unlike many other spiders, wolf spiders would sprint over the ground to hunt after an insect or lie in wait for prey to pass. They don’t have any easy-out webs that trap their victim.
Wolf spiders have a superb vision for nighttime hunting, and a spotlight also may start picking up their eyeshine in the undergrowth.
The only one that carries her egg bags isn’t wolf spiders. The omnipresent, brown, spindle spiders, that create web in poisonous corners, are carrying its lightly wrapped eggs in their mouths.
Often these moms keep their spiderlings hatching on their web. Web nursery spiders hold their egg bag with their mouths and set up their nursery webs. When the spiderlings are able to flock, their mother’s structure, frequently a leaf, is found, and the egg sac is placed in the middle of the silk tangling. For almost a week, she stays on watch till the spiderlings through a post-hatch molt.
How spiders raise their young
The male spider pursues the female spider with caution and begins a planned courting dance that is specific to his species. She observes, waits, and concludes that he is a suitable partner. He delivers his sperm to her and, if he’s fortunate, rushes away with his life, wary of her larger size.
Her eggs are fertilized by his sperm. Spiders are just the same up to this moment. However, what occurs after the eggs are deposited varies greatly amongst species, ranging from a little loving TLC in the early days to complete abandonment.
Safeguarding of eggs
When her eggs are deposited, a female spider can perform a number of things. Some spiders, like wolf spiders, pull their egg sacs behind them on a string of silk. Wolf spiders also repair flaws in their egg sacs, and some of them even expose their egg sacs to the sun. Most web-building spiders preserve their egg sacs by suspending them someplace inside the web. To safeguard their delicate egg casings, other spiders may lay down silk sheets.
Wolf Spiders
Maternal care isn’t totally absent in spiders, however, it is a rare occurrence. Certain mother spiders, notably wolf spiders, are significantly more active in the parenting role and protective of their offspring. A female wolf spider penetrates the egg sac well before hatching to assist the juvenile spiders to escape.
Mother wolf spiders hold their spiderlings on their backs, and the young intertwine their legs to maintain a stronghold of their mother. Mother wolf spiders even assist their young spiderlings in drinking water by keeping a few legs in the source of drinking water and enabling them to crawl down.
Though they are able to walk on the water rather than living under water, Wolf spiderlings are often too young to master the skills they need to survive strong water currents as the adult spiders do when hunting underwater.
Matriphagy
Matriphagy, or the action of the spiderlings devouring their mother, is a behavior practiced by some spiders, such as the sociable Diaea ergandros. Matriphagy is a rare occurrence in the animal world, although it is rather frequent among spider species. Diaea ergandros spiderlings dwell in the nest and eat big meals brought back by their mother.
Mother feasts on the remaining foods, which store nutrients in unfertilized eggs, when the fall comes and the food supply depletes it. Like little vampires, the hungry spiderlings start sucking their mother’s legs into the nutritionally dense blood.
Once they are too weak to move, they inject poison into it and attack it like they were. They assault her. The European spider Amaurobius ferox is a distinct ritual of matriphagy.
The mother beats with her legs to produce a meal bell after the spiderlings’ first molt. She presses her little brood, then swarms her, attacks her, and feeds voraciously on her body.
No Maternal Care
Several spiderlings hatch and are left to fend for themselves. They usually walk to new places or travel by ballooning, which involves the small animals releasing a string of silk that carries them kilometers away in the wind.
Because spiders are dangerous creatures, mating may be risky, particularly for males. When encountering a female, male spiders must be wary. Unlike with the fast, jerky motions of terrified insects, he will deliver calm, steady vibrations across the web with his claws.
This signals his presence, but he still needs to persuade the female not to devour him. Male Jumping spiders will do a dance to demonstrate to the female why he is there, while male Wolf spiders will wave their hairy front legs.
The Web spider from the male nursery (as a gentleman) wraps an insect into its silk and gives this to the females as a present! She will mate with him if the female does not decide to devour him. Following the mating.
She could still opt to devour him after mating if he escapes. It’s a difficult date!! The good news is that this is not a regular occurrence.
Based on the species, spiders can lay anywhere from 2 to 1000 eggs. Almost all female spiders make a silk ‘bed’ for their eggs and afterward surround them with a silk ‘blanket.’ To form the egg sac, she covers them in additional silk.
She secures the sac and keeps it secure until the babies hatch. When the infants’ hatch, they frequently remain within the sac to complete their development. Many mothers may wait until the spiderlings escape the sac, while others will flee or die before seeing their spiderlings.
Maturity
When they come out from the egg bag, the younger of most species are independent. Wolf spiderlings, generally between 20 and 100, crawl atop your mother’s back and stay there for 10 days until dispersal after hatching. If you fall off, you go up again, looking for touch with bristle structures (setae).
Sometimes mothers feed their spiderlings. The spiderlings also eat on their mother’s meal when food is suitably digested by the adult (digestion happens outside the mouth in spiders).
Other spiders, notably one European species (Coelotes Terrestris), have a female that dies when the youngsters are ready to eat, and the youngsters consume her carcass. One web spider’s mother (Achaearanea Riparia) pulls web strands to lead her offspring to sources of food and alert them of danger.
With the exception of size and underdeveloped reproductive organs, young spiderlings match adults. As they grow in size, they lose their skins (moult). The number of molts varies between species, within a species, and even between siblings of the same sex.
Males reach maturity sooner and have fewer molts (2–8) than females (6 to 12). Males of certain species are mature when they come out of the egg sac, having gone through one or two molts before then.
Some spiders grow within a few weeks of hatching, while many remain juvenile during the winter. In warm regions, mygalomorph spiders need three to four years (some authors estimate nine years) to reach sexual maturity.
Conclusion
The Australian Wolf spiders are a fantastic mother! She’ll tie the egg sac to spinnerets and keep it until the eggs hatch. The kids clamber onto her back after they are born and stay there until they’re fully mature, surviving off the yolks of her eggs (from their egg).
It may take many weeks to complete. They accompany her wherever, including on hunting expeditions. If one comes off, Mom will put down her work and wait until it is replaced.