Two Egg Sacs.....*pics*

[Removed_2815]

Hey guys,
Well this is a first, my Western Black Widow has produced two egg sacs. She has never had more than a single egg sac in her web. I opened the egg sac in the left of the pic (produced approximately 28 days ago) and took some pics:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~rbolton1/Folder/Two%20egg%20sacs.JPG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~rbolton1/Folder/Immature%20lings%201.JPG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~rbolton1/Folder/Immature%20lings%202.JPG
The smallest increment on the ruler is 1mm.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
R

[Dragoon]

Eeeeeee! What did you DO?!

Will they survive? I hope so, they have legs and are mobile...

Congrats on multiclutching your spider. I suppose it's a tribute to your care of her! Do you know if they are the same age? How much time, if any, passed before she made the second sac? She's so tiny, it must take a lot out of her to make one.
Cheers
D.

[Removed_2815]

Originally posted by Dragoon
Eeeeeee! What did you DO?!

Will they survive?


Don't think they'll survive, it was my intent to terminate the sac. I hate to do it, believe me, you guys should all know by now that the last thing I want to do is kill anything.... I can't keep raising spiderlings and multiclutching is hard on my females so I leave the sac with her for as long as possible before terminating it, unfortunately that means that there aren't just eggs in there anymore.

I finished a research paper last month about how there is a significant difference (I have all the stats worked out, but for clarity, I won't post them here) between how long it takes to produce an egg sac while one is already in the web. Basically, if I keep removing the sacs the day they are made, my females will be producing sacs every 8 days on average (again, for clarity I will leave out all the standard deviation); however, if I leave a sac in her web she'll only produce egg sacs every 28 days on average. Thus, it is in her best interest for me to leave the sacs in as long as possible (so she can live a longer, more natural life).


Cheers,
Ryan

[Emily-Fisher]

They are SO cute..

If you do keep on removing all the sacs and she continues to make eggsacks every 8 days, will they all be fertile even if she's living alone? Does she need a male to continue fertilizing her own eggs? Or is she... what do you call it.. a "hermaphrodite"? (I'm not sure if that's a good word to explain it since they're not male AND female... but can they breed with themselves like snails do?)

I feel like an idiot..

-Emily

[Removed_2815]

Snails are hermaphroditic, so they must copulate but either one of the pair can act as the male and the other as the female. The term you are looking for is parthenogenetic, some mantids exhibit this (as well as the flowerpot snake and whiptail lizards) in which an individual develops from an unfertilized egg - a clone, populations are entirely female. Widows are sexual and require a successful mating, however, females store the sperm from a single mating for the rest of her life and every sac she produces thereafter is fertilised (unless she's at the end of her reproductive years).
Cheers,
R