I called the kids over to look with me. We waited. We watched. We observed.
It was a spider. Quite a large spider.
A Carolina wolf spider. Female.
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| I can just imagine her growling at me from down there! |
She would carefully and cautiously approach the top of her hole, which rose like a little tower above the ground.
The following day we noticed a large white "ball" at the opening of the hole. After another short time of observation, we figured out it was the spider's egg sac.
A few days later I saw the hundreds of baby spiders atop mama's back, again on alert at the top of her observation tower.
The wolf spider is a hunter, so it uses the raised portion of the hole as a look-out for prey that may be passing by a short distance below them.
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| Not for the faint of heart! I got squeamish just taking these photos. |
We noticed that many of the newly-hatched baby spiders were climbing down off their mother's back and beginning their spiderly activities all over the ground...
and even commencing to spin their own tiny webs among the blades of grass!
and even commencing to spin their own tiny webs among the blades of grass!
Amazing.
Entries in our nature journals...
(Alice didn't want to do the spider. She chose something else.)
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| Royal's |
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| Mine |
Kristyn,
ReplyDeleteMy children obviously don't read blogs, but I had to show them this post. We are arachnid lovers and really enjoyed these photos. We often have garden spiders build their webs and leave their egg sacks in our flower beds and in our garden. It's always a thrill to see all those baby spiders hatch out, knowing that they will one day do their job of keeping the bad insect population to a minimum.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful experience. :)
I am so glad your family benefited from these photos. We are not spider-lovers around here; although we *do* find them quite interesting. Taking the pictures, I just began to feel itchy all over *knowing* those little babies were exploring ME. But I am glad that you pointed out a wonderful benefit of the spider: keeping the harmful insect population in check! Awesome. Now I have something I can really like about these creatures :-)
DeleteThese pictures are amazing - thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lucy.
DeleteSo glad you stopped by and left me some bloggy-love again :-)
Blessings!
Watching this whole drama develop in your photos had me on the edge of my seat! All those babies--yikes!! Your accompanying journal entries are great. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks again, Celeste, for stopping by and for your sweet comments :-)
DeleteVery interesting. I will have to show my son. We do not get this type of Wolf Spider. But we did read about how some dig deep burrows. Ours hide under things, like rocks and leaf litter. Plus ours are different in color. So interesting to see them both. Y'all have lovely journal entries.
ReplyDelete