I posted about 2 or 3 weeks ago that my widow I'd caught wasn't building webs or eating much
Good news though, she finally ate the cricket I put in there and she's been web building like crazy. She's also established a routine as far as location in the jar goes. I'm relieved, I planned to release her outside if she didn't acclimate in a reasonable timeframe.
gay spider
I named mine Lucy 🙂
yeah get a tank that opens up from side she likes building webs above the ground.
molting maybe?
I assume so, that's a good sign though, right?
well if that's what she was doing she didn't die in the process and that's always a plus
True spiders don't molt after adulthood, so if they did molt OP knows that the spider is barely mature.
Pics.
She’s pretty large, about the size of a nickel. I filled the jar with leaves and pieces of egg carton for her, also have some cotton balls soaked with water for moisture
I still haven’t named her. I had one at my old place named “Lady” but she passed, any suggestions are appreciated
I've always wanted to make an enclosure for a praying mantis or orb weaver, but I'm too lazy.
Maybe Lady Philomena.
I've been very impressed with her, she just chills in her jar and eats when I give her bugs.
Get her a real tank atleast.
I'd personally go for a 10 gallon but if you don't want to go that big atleast get something that she can build a decent web in.
Fellow black widow chad reporting in.
When I had one, I kept her in a little acrylic ballot box about this size, the locking door for food and little slot for water was a good setup. You can put straws or something stuffed with cotton through the slot so she can drink easily near the top of her web.
Something like a 0.5-1gal aquarium should work too, I wouldn't go smaller or that much bigger than this.
This is a cobweb spider, they are not gonna use more than a corner of a 10 gallon tank.
Black widows are super cool pets, they don't have the intelligence to not overeat if they catch too much prey, so they alter the structure of their web to be more trap-like or fortress-like depending on how hungry they are.
I've read that they don't need large enclosures at all
I have multiple black widows in my garden.
One has a web that engulfs a big vintage pinwheel and if I'm not paying attention when watering and spray it she retreats up her web to the vinyl siding on the house about 2 feet away. So they 100% will make large webs of they like the area.
I had a brown widow infestation once, so I went around the yard collecting orb weavers and whatever else I could find before they came to nuke the brown widows. I gave my friends an orb weaver. We placed it in front of one of their windows where they have a nightcap and sit at night. Webster would make a web in front of that window every night because the lights would draw bugs to the web.
If you're gonna keep her in a jar you should name it after one of the mlp characters.
"Beatrice" strikes me as a decent name for a black widow
Your name is appreciated but I'm thinking "Bellatrix", seems appropriately feminine and menacing