Okay so the other day I was taking the trash out and my nail caught on a spider egg sac!
Unfortunately it split open and all the little eggs came tumbling out and luckily landed in a box.
After getting them all in a glass, I was left with several questions, no answers and guilt! But I asked in a few spider groups and got a tutorial on making a spider incubator!
Sooo! We went through a few different stages of mini Orbeez
And by mini I mean REALLY mini!
But finally we started seeing development!
See the little white dot?! That’s a wee lil baby!
Then more started showing up!
Then the day came!! Little legs started showing up!!
And then!!!
Today I just went to look and!!
!!!
MY BABIES ARE HATCHING!
Update
They’re perfect in every way and I love my dumb spider babies.
This is Joseph. He’s learning to walk properly.
He’s not very good at it yet though.
He try his best.
He has a fucking :3 on his face.
Spiders are so precious
Once I was out at a park just chilling, and noticed a mom spider carrying her bundled up egg sac. I must have startled her because she dropped it while passing in front of me. I was so upset, but was carefully able to gently stick the sac on my finger tip and offer it out to her. She took it back without issue and continued on her way, and to this day it still remains one of my favourite tragic turned cute memories.
Whenever I see this new Mothra design, I think of the old cartoon version of Charlotte from Charlotte’s web. It’s probably just me thinking that (most likely, it’s only me thinking that).
“What’s a moth’s life, anyway? We live, we fight some giant dinosaurs, we die”
Any use of spider is good spider but I actually like when the emphasis ISN’T on the legs. The legs may be cool and may be what a spider is known for but it’s so obvious, I love when a spider monster is more abstracted, like the older Ettercaps from Dungeons and Dragons.
Second edition Ettercap was the most intriguing to me:
Not a “monster spider” but a monster that is spidery.
They later decided they needed to make them blatantly arachnoid, but their first attempt at that was still good:
maratus are small jumping spiders, usually 4-5 mm (0.2 in) or smaller, with a high degree of sexual dimorphism. they are more commonly known as peacock spiders based on the peacock-like display of the males. jumping spiders have excellent vision and are remarkably intelligent, able to learn and plan ahead.
maratus sceletus
colloquially named “skeletorus” and described in 2015, this species is only found in the wondul range national park of southern queensland, australia. males inflate their striped spinnerets as they display to females and dance asymmetrically, alternately raising one leg to one side and then using the other.
maratus personatus
known as the blueface maratus, this dazzling spider uses its vivid blue mask to attract females. unlike other peacock spiders, the males lack the characteristic fan-like abdomen, and instead relies on its colouration and white banding. they range in size from 3mm to 5mm and were discovered in 2015.
maratus anomalus
with bright iridescent scales, m. anomalus can appear turquoise, dark blue or purple depending on the angle you view it. these miniature spiders are small even by maratus standards, ranging from just 2 to 3mm. they appear to prefer sparse brush near the coast.
maratus spicatus
one of the smallest peacock spiders to date, this species is 3mm but still easily recognisable. it’s found in and around the bushland reserves of perth, western australia, where it prefers habitats of loose leaf litter, twigs and low vegetation. the males display by raising just one white-tipped third leg to attract the attentions of a female. this species was described in 2013.
maratus nigromaculatus
this brilliant blue spider is restricted in distribution to the coastal areas of queensland, where it seems prefers wetlands. it lives amongst grass and pigface plants (carpobrotus), particularly along the borders of estuaries. unlike the other peacock spiders nigromaculatus was described back in 1883.
maratusspeciosus
also called the coastal peacock spider, this tiny 4mm species exclusively inhabits the vegetation of the coastal sand dunes in western australia.the characteristic orange hairs are only visible during courtship displays.described in 1874, the species used to be classed as salticus, but was moved to maratus.
Ok so imagine your fantasy setting with your typical giant spiders.
Ok, now imagine that these spiders have largely been domesticated for their incredibly valuable silk. They help make clothes, rope, textiles, even ARMOR. They’re almost treated like carnivorous cows in the regions that can support them. They might even name these girls the classic names like “Bessie”. They’re great mothers and produce many young; useful for trade and… even food if you like The Crunch.
People in this world are hardly afraid of big spiders the same as we’re hardly afraid of big dogs. Wary of wild ones, but not scream and cry terrified. Smaller spiders…it depends. Would you be scared if you suddenly saw a tiny cow crawling on your wall? The only type of spider people collectively fear are the hunting types: the ones that don’t spin webs, and instead attack their prey with brute force and a much stronger venom.
These large domestic spiders are incredibly lazy. They’ll sit in their webs and wait for their handlers to put their food on the web. Unless you get tangled, they don’t see you as food. This makes them great guards as well. They build traps for you. The venom isn’t deadly to humans…but can still be used as a weapon or in medicine. They’re just so damn useful that millennia ago, people put aside their instinctual fear just to get those sweet benefits.
Thank you for attending my TedTalk.
Drow
See I thought of drow
But I think it’d be more interesting to see a group not labelled as “super duper evil” using giant spiders. Spiders aren’t evil by default, and if a fantasy culture used them enough, they’d get over their fear of arachnids, and they wouldn’t be seen as a dark, dreaded thing.
Ideally I wanna see dwarves making spider armor and elves spinning spider silk, while their forest home is protected by elegant webs.
Well in a more believable fantasy setting, a drow farmer probably wouldn’t be any more “evil” than a human farmer. It’s the military aristocracy and the church that import huge amounts of slaves, levy peasants into wars, and assassinate each other biweekly.
Equestrian sports are subsumed by Arachnian ones. Tarantulas replace clydesdales. Huntsmans are ridden at high speeds on a track for gambling purposes. Wolf spiders are employed as guard animals and for herding other spiders. Daddy long legs’ are akin to foxes on stilts. The family down the street are nursing a wild trapdoor spider back to health after its burrow flooded. Certain forests are off limits to the public because of latrodectus (widow) web-farming operations (Nephila silk being stronger but less cost effective due to species distribution and size). Finally jumping spiders are kept as pets for their relative size and intelligence (Rivalling that of octopods).
Monsters and Stuff 