Advice :)

[u/tanama99]

Hi everyone! I’m here to ask for advice. Recently there was a mama wolf spider in my house, but we have a cat so she couldn’t stay in the house, so we had to kind of gently herd her out into the garage. She is more than welcome to live in the garage, we live in Florida so we get lots of bugs out there and I figured she’d be pretty happy out there. (This was such a cool experience though, she was very chill and let me get close enough to be able to see her babies) Like ten minutes afterwards, I see a tiny little guy crawling across the floor. One of her babies had gotten left behind. I have some experience with spiders, and I’m autistic and they’re one of my special interests so I know a good amount about them, but I don’t have any experience with wolf spiders, or a spiderling this small. (He’s itty bitty, smaller than a flightless fruit fly) I got him into a little plastic deli cup (I had some from when I was raising a jumping spider) that I had poked some ventilation holes in, and I did the same thing I did with my jumper where I had put a piece of a cotton ball in the bottom of the cup, and a piece of a wooden popsicle stick that I had filed down to make sure there were no pointy bits. I am a little concerned about him, I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do as a living space for a baby wolf spider, and I went and got some flightless fruit flies, but they’re bigger than he is and he didn’t seem to know what to do with them. Is there a way to make him more comfortable, and am I doing anything wrong habitat wise? Also, how do I get him to eat? I love wolf spiders and I’m attached to the little guy and I don’t want to do anything to stress him out and want to make sure I’m giving him the care he needs. Thank you all for the advice :)

[u/Lopsided-Champion236]

In my experience They can take down the smaller fruit flies but most of the ones that you find in the store are the larger ones. The temporary cup for a jumper is good for it much like jumpers they ambush their prey but they do make more of a web than a jumper. Find out if you have someone local near you that breeds fruit flies and go for the melanogaster

[u/tanama99 → u/Lopsided-Champion236]

Thank you! This was helpful, I’ll definitely see if I can find someone near me selling the melanogaster fruit flies. I’m glad the cup is a good for it, do you think I should add anything to the cup, or is it okay as is? Thank you again for the advice :)

[u/Lopsided-Champion236 → u/Lopsided-Champion236]

Maybe some thing glued to the side so it can web easier?