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Sharyn
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| Posted: Oct 06 2009 at 9:23pm | IP Logged
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We have a poster of Australian spiders and have marvelled at all the varieties, but we were most surprised to find one of the more exotic looking ones living on a bush near our car, the Bird Dung Spider!
Anyway it pretty much kept to the one spot, and not long after we noticed two little balls that looked like wooden seeds. This was before my littlest was born 6 months ago! I wish we had written down when we noticed. I just remember we had a quick check of our spider before going off to the hospital for our little girl to be born  So that's my reference point.
Anyway, yesterday we noticed two small holes in the egg balls and saw tiny, tiny little Bird Dung Spiders!!!
What devotion that mother spider had. We barely saw her move. She sat on those eggs for pretty much the last six months! We think she did get off them to eat at night time. But she sat on those eggs through the winter, through storms and hail. She was not at all timid or concerned with our observations. Her body has shrunk to half or more of its size, yet she still lives. I wonder if she will die now?
Hooray for our Bird Dung Spider anyway!!! Her babies are hatched!!! And we hope at least one chooses to stay 
Goes to show there can be more in your garden than you imagine.
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Oct 07 2009 at 6:11pm | IP Logged
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Yay!!!Congratulations!
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Jody
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Congrats! What a cool science study!!!
Jody
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MaryM
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| Posted: Oct 07 2009 at 8:00pm | IP Logged
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Sharyn wrote:
| Hooray for our Bird Dung Spider anyway!!! Her babies are hatched!!! And we hope at least one chooses to stay |
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...that would be sweet...just like Charlotte's web
Did you get any pictures??
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Sharyn
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| Posted: Oct 07 2009 at 9:13pm | IP Logged
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MaryM wrote:
| ...that would be sweet...just like Charlotte's web |
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I almost added that myself
MaryM wrote:
| Did you get any pictures?? |
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Unfortunately our current camera's cannot do macro work at all. We did take pictures of the mother spider, but even these weren't too great. The babies were a little bigger than a pin head. I have to talk dh into a good digital SLR some time soon
I did photography at college for a little while, I'd really like to get back into it now that digital technology has advanced so much.
I was thinking last night, that the holes in the egg balls must have been made by the mum. It surely would have been too difficult for the babies to have made, and may explain why she stayed with them? Facinating.
Well even though we can't take pictures I think we will get to work and do some drawings for our nature journals.
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Sharyn
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| Posted: Dec 11 2009 at 1:18am | IP Logged
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Sharyn wrote:
| Her body has shrunk to half or more of its size, yet she still lives. I wonder if she will die now? |
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Well, quite possibly this is not of interest  but her body puffed up again and she laid 3 egg balls on which she is now sitting 
Here is a picture of aBird Dung Spidersitting on her eggs.
Did you know that some spiders can live to be up to 30 years old! I don't know that our Bird Dung spider will live that long, but aparently she doesn't just die after a season.
Now if you had told me in my 'pre-homeschooling' days that I'd be researching spiders in my garden I would have been amazed to say the least. What a blessing homeschooling has been for me! It has taught me that I can be curious about the world around me too, it's not just something for kids at school, that learning can be lifelong, and just as wonderous as in childhood. I feel like I have been woken from a slumber. Thank you God for that!
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Dec 11 2009 at 1:34am | IP Logged
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Fabulous!!!!!
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AtHomeScience
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Very cool!
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joann10
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This is just so cool!!
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Dec 11 2009 at 3:50pm | IP Logged
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This is very interesting, Sharyn! I'm glad you shared this here!
We had lots of fun watching a spider and her eggs in our learning room window this past summer. We were able to observe several generations of this spider in our window, as this is one of the spiders that dies shortly after laying her eggs. This is a really fun way to observe nature without ever leaving the schoolroom!!!
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Our Bird Dung Spiders babies hatched :)
