House Spider - The Most Patient Hunter

The house spider is widespread almost everywhere and is very common in residential buildings. We can say that we are already used to him and to his web in the form of a funnel, and so much so that we even folded will take a few. Let's look at the life of this creature in more detail.

Characteristic

In our homes, representatives of the species tegenaria domestica, or house spider, are most often found.

• Body dimensions about 12 mm. Moreover, the female will always be larger than the male, the size of the latter often does not exceed 9 mm.
• Their abdomen has an oblong shape and is colored, as a rule, in a yellowish or beige-brown color. The color of males is always darker.
• Powerful limbs are decorated with dark rings, while in males the area at their base is almost black. The first pair of legs is the longest, often longer than the back.
• As you can see in the photo, the main distinguishing feature of the appearance of the house spider is the pattern on the back, folded from brown spots. Moreover, in young animals, it is absent and appears on the body only after three links.
• House spiders have four pairs of eyes: two pairs are in the same row in front of the cephalothorax, two lateral eyes, and another pair on top. The latter are basic, all the rest are simple.

The closest "relatives" of our house spider are representatives of the species Tegenaria agrestis, or American house spider. Another species of the funnel family is known to science - this is Tegenaria duellica, or the giant house spider. These creatures are notable for waging a fierce battle for prey, during which they can kill their own kind.

Habitat

In nature, funnel spiders, which include tegenaria domestica, can be found under the bark of trees, in forest litter and under fallen leaves. Often, they also choose places near fallen trunks, old driftwood, small hollows or grass thickets in which it is very convenient for these spiders to arrange funnel-shaped hunting nets.

For a house spider, the most preferred are the premises - which is why it was called that. Tegenaria domestica settles in basements and cellars, in various technical rooms and, of course, in houses and apartments. He hangs his web, as a rule, in dark corners or in more secluded places, for example, behind cabinets, and then patiently waits for the prey to appear. The fishing net is almost flat, has a triangular shape and is located in the horizontal plane, and its central part (living tube) will always go sharply into a corner - there its owner sits.

Hunting

The house spider hunts mainly in the dark and can do this with the help of the web, and without it. Here the whole point is that his hunting net does not have adhesive properties, it simply does not have those sticky nodules to which the victim sticks, and therefore it does not represent special value as a direct trap. The tegenarius web is a thick, dense carpet in which prey is usually “drowned”.

In the first case, hunting occurs as follows. An insect that accidentally appears on the surface of the web begins to shake it, which creates vibrations. The hunter instantly catches them by the oscillations of the signal thread, immediately jumps out of his ambush and, with sliding movements, approaches his food.He attacks prey, plunges his sharp fang-like jaws into her body and injects poison and digestive juices through special channels. Soon, the insect dies, after which tegenaria drags it deep into the living tube. And after the internal contents are partially digested, the spider starts a meal - it sucks out the liquid contents, leaving only the chitinous membrane intact.

On a note! But sometimes a very daring victim can fall into the network of tegenarii, ants are such. Despite its small size, a fast, agile and brave little ant-ant is capable of giving a worthy rebuff to a spider hunter. Armed with powerful jaws, it reflects the attacks of the enemy, and quickly exhausts it. Thus, the tired spider goes into its pipe, and the ant winner bites the web threads from his feet and also leaves!

Usually, a house spider does not linger in one web for a long time and as soon as the first one is filled with the remains of trapped insects, it begins to make a new one. The frequency of change of residence is two to three weeks. One day of hunting brings about 10-12 insects, but since he is not able to eat everyone at once, you have to put off excess prozap. The tegenaria domestica diet consists mainly of small Drosophila flies, large house flies and some house pests.

On a note! The house spider cleans residential buildings and apartments of many parasitic insects, which renders us a great service!

And the second way of hunting is without thick snares. The spider in this case uses only two signal strings, which it stretches in a certain area. In the future, fishing takes place according to the above scheme: a potential victim catches a thread, tegenaria reacts, catches up with it and bites.

Breeding

When the time comes for romantic courtship, the males begin to look for a passion for mating. When appearing at the female’s web, the newly-made boyfriend must be extremely careful, as there is a rather high risk of being attacked or even killed. In languid expectation, he can spend several hours.

First, the male usually steps on the edge of the web and is located on its lower side, and as soon as the female emerges from the funnel, he crawls to the top of the network. If the mistress does not immediately attack, but remains to wait, then the boyfriend very slowly literally millimeter approaches her. At the same time, he is always on the alert and at any second, at the slightest hint of aggression from the side of his beloved, he is ready to rush to the hell. Having come close enough, the male, without breathing with a sinking heart, very carefully touches the female's front leg.

Some time after mating, the female makes a clutch. She lays eggs in several flat cocoons and hangs them on her web. Hatched youngsters spend some time near their mother. The resettlement of young tegenaria occurs about a year later, when they already know how to hunt independently.

Tegenaria related features

So, having considered the description of house spiders and having learned all about their lifestyle, it remains only to mention a few folk signs. They are associated with one feature of this creature - tegenaria surprisingly very sensitively perceives the slightest fluctuations in atmospheric pressure and air humidity and immediately reacts to them:

• the house spider hid in a residential pipe and does not come out for a long time - it will rain soon;
• inspires a new web with inspiration - to clear sunny weather.