An eight legged friend who lives in my tub.

[pitbulllady]

Originally Posted by Tonya

Uh ohhh..... I did something bad and I didin't mean too!
Okay what happened was, I tried to shuffle the spider on a piece of cardboard to put in in a jar. Well, it freaked out, ran toward under the mopbucket and died. I was really gentle, but I thinkI scared my Little Guy to death! *is sad* Aw, now I feel really bad.... I was thinking about keeping it atleast for a little while and feeding it ladybugs-we have way to many hanging around our house. But...I scared him to death.... He must've been really timid. My Little Guy has gone to a better place.
I don't know what I did wrong.

You might not have done anything wrong, many spider species are masters of "playing 'possum"! Black Widows, Common House Spiders, Black House Spiders, and many others will very convincingly play dead, since birds and lizards are among their main predators, and both are highly stimulated to attack by MOVEMENT. Most lizards that eat spiders won't eat one that's already dead, so the ruse works. Here is a big female Black House Spider(Kukulcania hibernalis) that I caught at school last year curling up and trying to convince me that she was dead. She was just fine, believe me; as soon as I placed her on my hand, out of that plastic cup, she took off like her heels were on fire and her butt was catchin'!



pitbulllady