MORNING SENTINEL • August 12, 2020
One distinctive characteristic of nursery web spiders is their unusual mating routine in which the female and male dangle together on a thread, with the female wrapped loosely in silk. Afterward she constructs a silk cocoon in which she stores her eggs, carrying it under her body by holding it with her chelicerae, or jaws. When the eggs have matured, she finds a suitable site, such as underneath the leaf of a day lily, and builds a web where she stows the eggs and then stands guard over them. After the spiderlings hatch she keeps standing guard. ~ Dana Wilde