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Sunday, April 1, 2012

Lichen huntsman life cycle

The life cycle of lichen huntsman from mating stage, laying eggs, guarding nest, and protecting the spiderlings until their second molts. Thanks to SpiderJoe for sharing his knowledge which made this post possible.

For more tropical spiders, click here.

A mating pair of lichen huntsman in broad day light :P
A mating pair of lichen huntsmans ...IMG_0295 copy

The same pair from a different angle.
A mating pair of lichen huntsmans...IMG_0306 copy

Mom-to-be lichen huntsman guarding her precious eggs/nest. Not the same mom as in the fifth image and onwards. Just to give you an idea of what it looked like.
Lichen huntsman guarding her nest/eggs...IMG_0941stk copy

Since i had no idea when the eggs were laid, so no info on how long it took for the eggs to hatch.
Mom to be lichen huntsman guarding her eggs/nest...IMG_0583 copy

Feb 16, 2012:

Lichen huntsman momma with her brood of spiderlings
lichen huntsman with spiderlings...IMG_2191 merged copy

Lichen huntsman with her spiderlings...IMG_2146 copy


A closer look at the huntsman spiderlings. These were all the smaller ones (1st instars?)
Lichen huntsman spiderlings....IMG_2154 copy

Even closer, about 4X. (1st instars?)
IMG_2178 copy


Feb 17, 2012

Mother lichen huntsman with her broods all around her :). It's so cool how the spiderlings neatly spaced themselves out all around the mother, all looking downwards too!
Mother lichen huntsman with her spiderlings...R0016739 copy

Slightly closer. There were two bigger spiderlings (2nd instars?) in front of the mother on the egg sac, and many other smaller ones (1st instars?) all around
Momma lichen huntsman with her spiderlings....R0016747 copy

A crop showing the bigger spiderlings (2nd instars?) in front of the mother vs the other smaller ones (1st instars).
bigger spiderlings vs the smaller ones....R0016739 cropped


Feb 18, 2010


Mother lichen huntsman and the spiderlings were still around, but the bigger spiderlings (2nd instars?) seemed to have left the nest to embark on their own life journey :)
Mother lichen huntsman with her spiderling...R0016778 copy

Mother lichen huntsman and her spiderlings...R0016780 copy

I went back again a few days later but they were all gone.

A different type of huntsman with egg sac and later, spiderlings:

Orange huntsman with egg sac. You can see some emerged spiderlings through the crack on the egg sac.
Orange huntsman with egg sac...IMG_8655 copy

Orange huntsman with her spiderlings. Not the same individual.
Orange momma huntsman with her spiderlings..IMG_8696 (2) copy

A lone spiderlings on an empty egg sac.
Spiderlings on an empty egg sac..IMG_8690 copy

I have a post on Viciria sp. jumping spider life cycle too in case you are interested.

More spiders related posts:

1. Ant-mimic crab spider eating weaver ant
2. More ant-mimic spiders
3. Wonderful jumping spiders
4. Ant-mimic crab spider - mating!
5. Male red ant-mimic jumping spider
6. Tropical spiders
7. Jumping spider life cycle
8. Lichen huntsman life cycle 




2 comments:

  1. If you click on the above photos, it goes to a flikr page, but this page is set to private viewing only, so you get an error.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks JW.

    Andrew, I changed the privacy setting on those flickr pix.

    ReplyDelete

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