Now, is she not beautiful? Please, click on the photo for a really nice close up…
Just look at those velvety stripes…!
Reading the wonderful Forster & Forster reveals the interesting life of these spiders (Dolomedes minor). For five weeks over summer, the female carries a sac the size of a pea, full of eggs, around with her. Somehow she knows when the spiderlings are about to hatch, because at that point she climbs a nearby shrub to spin the nurseryweb around the egg sac.
Not long after, the spiderlings hatch. The mother stays around for a week or so to guard the nursery.
And by the second week both the mother and the spiderlings have gone, leaving behind just the tattered nursery web…
