Klippie, you asked about the larger slings verses the smaller slings.
Here are some pictures.



There has been another egg sack, right in the front of the enclosure on the left hand.



There is a couple of the larger slings from the first egg sack that has moved into this burrow and hasd been staying there for a while now. Here they are with the new lot of slings.

The numbers keep climbing and climbing

I always look forward to these posts

Wow, Thank you Cascade, very interesting how this communal just seems to keep growing and growing.

So an update with regards to winter and the communal.

I have left the communal in the house with no heating.
The only heat the communal gets is early morning sun.

Basically the top side of the enclosure as become a ghost town, the webbing is old and tattered with not much movement of life.

This afternoon I decided to do some digging around as this is the first time in the life of my hobby that I have not given my spiders heating or covered from the cold.

The roaches have all moved underground or under bark or stones.
The spiders have all gone under ground, The one burrow that I pulled up to see what is happening had a a larger female with 1 x 2cm sling and 5 x smaller slings.

I have been semi keeping track of temps, with the past 3 nights being the coldest.
Yesterday morning the temps were sitting at 3degrees with tonight temps not to far behind, sitting at 5degrees at the moment.

With early morning temps being the coldest.

Even though I have choosen to not give my communal heating it is still a fair bit of worry and uncertainty on the out come at the end of winter.


I have also lengthened the feeding schedule to monthly for the sake of winter and for the simple reason of the spiders not really eating.

This is very interesting. Change is the only constant. How is your communal setup doing? Any updates on how its living inhabitants are engaging winter so far?

I think this will answer your question. :laugh:

Jake wrote: So an update with regards to winter and the communal.

I have left the communal in the house with no heating.
The only heat the communal gets is early morning sun.

Basically the top side of the enclosure as become a ghost town, the webbing is old and tattered with not much movement of life.

This afternoon I decided to do some digging around as this is the first time in the life of my hobby that I have not given my spiders heating or covered from the cold.

The roaches have all moved underground or under bark or stones.
The spiders have all gone under ground, The one burrow that I pulled up to see what is happening had a a larger female with 1 x 2cm sling and 5 x smaller slings.

I have been semi keeping track of temps, with the past 3 nights being the coldest.
Yesterday morning the temps were sitting at 3degrees with tonight temps not to far behind, sitting at 5degrees at the moment.

With early morning temps being the coldest.

Even though I have choosen to not give my communal heating it is still a fair bit of worry and uncertainty on the out come at the end of winter.


I have also lengthened the feeding schedule to monthly for the sake of winter and for the simple reason of the spiders not really eating.