Spider on a stick!

On 07/05/20 at the pond I found a female Alopecosa pulverulenta that had apparently lost her egg sac and was now running around with a small piece of plant debris as a substitute! Trying to capture a photo of this proved harder than anticipated and nearly all photos seemed to show a spider running over a stick! Eventually I got a shot that I was half happy with.. I then decided to try and capture an image of the spider on my hand and after several attempts was successful and shows the attached plant debris clearly.. Illustrious arachnologists and naturalists have had a fascination with mother Lycosids innate maternal instincts and her willingness to accept foreign objects over her own egg sac and countless experiments have been conducted. George and Elizabeth Peckham found that after removing an egg sac from a Lycosid, she would readily accept it back after 16/17 hours and as long as 24 hours but after 2 days the female would ignore it. English arachnologist, teacher and linguist Theodore Savory noted that the female lycosids urge to attach a substitute to her spinnerets was greatest shortly after laying her eggs. By all accounts this urge would abate over time.. English naturalist and arachnologist W.S Bristowe's experiments involved substituting the female lycosids egg sac with small snail shells and rabbit pellets! . French arachnologist Pierre Bonnet noted that female lycosids would accept rounded objects of variable colour, shape or size. Obviously my Alopecosa pulverulenta who was carrying an item that was quite the opposite to round hadn't read Bonnet's "L'instinct maternel des Araignées". We now come to French naturalist and entomologist Jean Henri Fabre! Sadly, whilst reading through all the previous arachnologists experiments, although they quote each other, not once do they mention the extensive experiments that Fabre conducted and which were done many years before the others.. Fabre's book The Life of the Spider is remarkable and reading through his experiments and observations gives us a real understanding of his passion. This is a guy that Darwin in the "Origin of Species" called “that inimitable observer.”
There is a common theme that runs through this post and that is all the observations and experiments were on captive specimens and not observed in the natural environment. So that is why, I was so doubly excited by finding this specific Alopecosa pulverulenta at the pond and doubt very much that I will see this behaviour again in a natural setting.
Fabre's book can be read online and please visit chapter 3: The Narbonne Lycosa and marvel at his exhaustive observations and experiments!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1887/1887-h/1887-h.htm

Publicado el mayo 12, 2020 07:54 MAÑANA por turnfear2fascination turnfear2fascination

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Mayo 7, 2020 a las 10:49 MAÑANA CEST

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Spider on a stick!
On 07/05/20 at the pond I found a female Alopecosa pulverulenta that had apparently lost her egg sac and was now running around with a small piece of plant debris as a substitute! Trying to capture a photo of this proved harder than anticipated and nearly all photos seemed to show a spider running over a stick! Eventually I got a shot that I was half happy with.. I then decided to try and capture an image of the spider on my hand and after several attempts was successful and shows the attached plant debris clearly.. Illustrious arachnologists and naturalists have had a fascination with mother Lycosids innate maternal instincts and her willingness to accept foreign objects over her own egg sac and countless experiments have been conducted. George and Elizabeth Peckham found that after removing an egg sac from a Lycosid, she would readily accept it back after 16/17 hours and as long as 24 hours but after 2 days the female would ignore it. English arachnologist, teacher and linguist Theodore Savory noted that the female lycosids urge to attach a substitute to her spinnerets was greatest shortly after laying her eggs. By all accounts this urge would abate over time.. English naturalist and arachnologist W.S Bristowe's experiments involved substituting the female lycosids egg sac with small snail shells and rabbit pellets! . French arachnologist Pierre Bonnet noted that female lycosids would accept rounded objects of variable colour, shape or size. Obviously my Alopecosa pulverulenta who was carrying an item that was quite the opposite to round hadn't read Bonnet's "L'instinct maternel des Araignées". We now come to French naturalist and entomologist Jean Henri Fabre! Sadly, whilst reading through all the previous arachnologists experiments, although they quote each other, not once do they mention the extensive experiments that Fabre conducted and which were done many years before the others.. Fabre's book The Life of the Spider is remarkable and reading through his experiments and observations gives us a real understanding of his passion. This is a guy that Darwin in the "Origin of Species" called “that inimitable observer.”
There is a common theme that runs through this post and that is all the observations and experiments were on captive specimens and not observed in the natural environment. So that is why, I was so doubly excited by finding this specific Alopecosa pulverulenta at the pond and doubt very much that I will see this behaviour again in a natural setting.
Fabre's book can be read online and please visit chapter 3: The Narbonne Lycosa and marvel at his exhaustive observations and experiments!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1887/1887-h/1887-h.htm

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