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Photo#41692
Baby regius - Phidippus regius

Baby regius - Phidippus regius
Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Florida, USA
January 27, 2006
Size: <1mm
I learned an interesting thing about jumpers last night. My female Phidippus regius had laid an egg sac a few months ago. A week ago, I saw they were beginning to hatch. As I couldnt provide the tiny prey for the little guys too easily, I turfed them out in the cold dark night, tearing their silken shelter in the process. I affixed it to a screen outside my house.
This morning I checked up on them, to see how they had fared. To my surprise, all the tearing which occurred last night was repaired, and the spiderlings were all in a little ball. So what did I do? I tore the nest again so I could get this shot, then re-affixed the nest to the screen.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that little jumpers repair their silken retreat.

Moved
Moved from Typical variations.

1st Instars
Jeff is correct about these being first instars. If you want to raise some, a good source for everything you need to raise the fruitflies is at fruitflies.net.

 
Thanks
for chiming in, although I did not know there was a question as to whether I was correct or not.

Interesting.
You may want to wait until it warms up later this week before releasing them.
More importantly, they look like 1st instars to me, so they would be helpless if removed from the sac. Your spiderlings will molt one more time before leaving sac, and even then it may be a week or more before they decide to do so.
To insure the survival of the spiderlings, place the sac at the bottom of a small container. When ready, the 2nd instar spiderlings will eventually leave the sac and move to the top of the container. Then you can just take the container outside, open it.....

If you are interested in raising a few, wingless or flightless (may be better as wings are believed to be an important visual cue for prey recognition) fruit flies are excellent prey, and 2nd instar regius are aggresive and easy to rear in captivity.

 
...
I will give it a try. Is there any way they could eat mosquitoes? That is the only thing I have a lot of.

 
not likely
Mosquitoes are too large for 2nd instars. They need a prey comparative in size. I have read that ant larvae are a good food source for them. I've tried them and the spiderling will eat them, but the ant larvae take too much work to aquire.

 
...
I brought them in so they should be happier tonight, I seems like they are all alive and well.

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