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#10
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05-18-2011, 12:31 PM
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 So Fucking Banned Poster Rank:338 Male Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 3,766
Contributions: 26
Mentioned: 1 Post(s) Quoted: 32 Post(s)
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Re: Spider Webs
As a child in Nebraska I became a great fan of spiders. We had jumping spiders of several types. The strangest one was found in the barns. It was very angular and of medium size. They were all over blooms doing thier hunting. Then there was the Golden Orb Spider. It was rather large and ate full grown grasshoppers. I would find a likely one in early spring and feed it as many hoppers as it would take. The technique was to go around catching grasshoppers and just toss them into the net and let the spider wrap the grasshopper up in silk and when it was done toss in another one. Keep it up until the spider refused to respond. Sometimes they would signal they had enough by cutting loose any more victims. Then it was time to leave them alone to feed as that took quite a bit of time and was boring after awhile of watching. Then return the following day. I would examine the discarded grasshoppers laying under the web. The spider would cut loose the carcasses and let them drop and then repair the web for the next day. The old carcasses would have all the juices sucked out and be more or less just empty shells. So I would repeat the process from the day before and give my spider friend enough food for another round of feasting. By the end of the summer the hand fed spiders were much larger than any other spiders. They produced much more egg sacks. I got a sense of satisfaction from doing my bit to control the grass hopper population. When egg sacks began hatching I would take them quickly to other areas of the garden and surrounding yard to help spread them out a bit. |
