Nursery Web Spider - Pisaurina sp. and Pisaurina mira
Family Pisauridae - Nursery Web and fishing spiders.
The nursery web spider carries her egg-sac, or coccoon, under her body until near hatching. She then spins a protective web in which her hatchlings live until their first moult.
 


Sometimes the cocoon is so big the spider's legs hardly touch the terrain.


These spiders resemble the wolf spiders (Lycosidae), but have a different eye pattern. Pisaurids have their eyes arranged in 2 rows, the posterior row slightly recurved, the median eyes in the second row slighly (if any) larger than the others. (Wolf spiders have eyes arranged in 3 rows). The egg sac is carried by the female under her prosoma, held there by her chelicerae and pedipalps. It is further supported by silk lines to the spinnerets. [1]

Before the eggs hatch, the female attaches the sac to a plant and then builds a web around it. When the eggs inside are hatching, the momma spider opens the cocoon and releases the hatchlings -- then stands guard nearby. The hatchlings remain in the web until thier first moult. The Pisaurids forage for their food and build webs only for protecting their young.


Pisaurina sp. -->
Female with egg sac

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Pisaurina mira -->
Very pregnant female

 


The Pisaurid spiders have a distinctive eye arrangement. Above: nursery web spider. Below: Fishing spider.


Fishing Spider, Dolomedes species

Some spiders in this family, particularly fishing spiders in the genus Dolomedes, are quite large and may have a legspread of 75 mm or more.The Dolomedes spiders live near water; they walk on the surface of water and dive underneath it to feed on aquatic insects and even small fish. Fishing spiders also carry their egg-sac under their abdomen.
 



 


Nursery web filled with hundreds of spiderlings shortly after hatching. I could not see the adult spider anywhere. No doubt she was well-hidden.
 

References
  1. Paul Hillyard, Private Life of Spiders (New Holland Publishers Ltd, 2007).



 
              
 
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