Funnelweb spider male comes courting

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Troels
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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by Troels »

A captivating story.
Almost like having a live webcam installed.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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rjlittlefield
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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

Yes! Lately this whole process has given me the sense of some Nature storyline, except macro-sized and in my own window rather than on the African savanna.

--Rik

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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

The latest installment:

"While the female waits expectantly inside their lair, the large male stands guard over the entrance, towering over the remains of last night's dinner."

Image

--Rik

(Technical: It's a 2-frame stack: one focused on him, one on her. ISO 800, f/8, 1/85 second, natural light, Av auto mode. Canon T1i w/ Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens, cropped for composition.)

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Re: Funnelweb spider males come courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

I've tweaked the title of this reply, to reflect the fact that right now, there are definitely two large male spiders, one in each corner, in view at the same time.

The one on the left is doing something with its pedipalps; the one on the right is just sitting there.

Image

(crop)
Image

Image

--Rik

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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

Some additional info...

I asked Rod Crawford, spider guru at the Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, to take a look at this thread. He replied:
Your spiders are the species of European house spider that we used to call Tegenaria gigantea. It has changed names several times and now the most up-to-date (which wouldn't include me) are calling it Eratigena duellica, a name I consider a nomen dubium. Anyway, they are not close relatives of Agelenopsis and it would not be safe to assume that mating procedures are similar.

There has been lots of research on intersexual behavior in Tegenaria domestica, but I don't know how much comparable work has bee done on your species. ... You could plug the above 2 names into a Google Scholar search and see what papers pop up. I do recall that some degree of cohabitation has been observed in domestica.
--Rik

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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

The mating season continues...

A couple of days ago, I was interested to see one of the large males with an almost equally large something underneath it, near the entrance of the funnel. I wondered what he had caught for lunch.

But as I approached to take a closer look, there was a flurry of movement, and suddenly the male was standing by himself, looking into the funnel, where the female was then standing looking out.

Image

Oops! It seems that I've interrupted something interesting. :oops:

But apparently my interruption did not totally distract the pair from business at hand.

The above was at 10:57 AM. By 11:00 AM, the picture had changed to this:

Image

Seeing no movement, I left to do some other things. When I checked back at 11:25 AM, the pair had gotten together again.

Image

And there they stayed, until at least 5:29 PM.

When I came back at 6:02 PM, the scene had changed to this:

Image

Some further web searching turned up this account at https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/spiders/giant-house-spider
Giant house spider
Scientific name: Eratigena atrica
The giant house spider is one of our fastest invertebrates, running up to half a metre per second. This large, brown spider spins sheet-like cobwebs and pops up in the dark corners of houses, particularly in autumn.
...
Giant house spiders are particularly prevalent in the autumn when the males are out looking for females. The males stay with their chosen females for some weeks, mating numerous times until eventually they die, at which point they are eaten by their female.
I had no idea spiders could be this sociable!

Speaking of "sociable", overall the window looks like this -- males at the red arrows, gravid females in funnels at the green arrows.

Image

--Rik

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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

Some further general information, found in searching.

http://srs.britishspiders.org.uk/portal.php/p/Summary/s/Tegenaria+gigantea
Distribution
T. gigantea is widespread across eastern, central and northern England, but more sporadic in Scotland and the west. In mainland Europe, the natural range seems to be confined to France and the Iberian Peninsula although it has been reported in a number of other countries (Maurer 1992), apparently as a result of accidental importation by humans. It is well-established in the Pacific North-west of North America.

Habitat and ecology
The species is often found in houses, garages and sheds. It also occurs in areas far from human habitation throughout its British range, where it inhabits rock, stone and tree crevices, overhanging banks, rabbit holes and very dense vegetation. Within houses, the species is most often noticed in late summer and autumn when males wander freely in search of the more sedentary females. Mating occurs in autumn and females over-winter with stored sperm. In spring, with increasing temperature and food supply, egg-sacs are produced over an extended period. Both sexes overwinter as half-grown juveniles and mature the following year. Males die after mating (lifespan some 18 months) but females may live for a further year (lifespan two and a half years or more). The total number of instars to maturity can vary widely, which explains the large differences in size often found in mature individuals (Merrett 1980). Where this species overlaps geographically with the closely related E. saeva, rare interspecific crosses can take place (Oxford & Croucher 2014). The hybrid offspring are fertile and backcross freely to both parents. Gene exchange between the species is common in some areas e.g. central Yorkshire (Oxford & Smith 1987; Croucher et al. 2007).
--Rik

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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

It had been several days since I had seen any males, and I thought perhaps the autumn festivities had ened.

But then today, 10 days from the first mating that I captured:

4:17 pm

Image


4:29 pm

Image

--Rik

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Re: Funnelweb spider male comes courting

Post by rjlittlefield »

Just now, one male spider appeared again, after a period of several weeks since I last saw any.

Image

However, closely comparing this image against the image in the previous post, I am almost 100% sure that this is not the same individual that was here before. This one is smaller, most significantly including the legspan, and there are clear differences in some of the large bristles of the front two pairs of legs, visible in several photos.

--Rik

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