I keep a tiny little spider by the sink faucet, and there are larger spiders around and cobwebs here and there. I can’t figure out what they are eating. In a related issue, I have a load of mealy bug on a succulent plant that is in the asclepias family and looks like a cactus but bloomed and then got a pod on it several inches long just like a milkweed pod only thinner, and there are spiderwebs all over this area and yet they refuse to eat the mealybugs! I always leave spiders hoping they will eat the red spider mites, the mealybugs, the aphids, and so on on my plants, but they never do. But back to the first question, what could a little spider in the bathroom faucet area possibly be eating? What good is it to let spiders live if they aren’t going to be of any household help?
Spiders typically do not need to eat much. Many web spinners can go for days or even several weeks without food. It sounds like you have a buyer’s market–the number of prey is much higher than the number of spiders. And when the spiders do eat, it’s so rare that you don’t catch them in the act.
Web-spinning spiders, with a few exceptions, do not leave the web to capture prey. So it doesn’t matter that there are a lot of potential meals in the area, if they’re not getting themselves trapped.
Also, when very small insects such as mites or aphids get caught, their struggles might not be enough to make sufficient vibrations in the web. In those cases the spider doesn’t even know there’s something in the web and the insect has a good chance of getting away.
Your eight-legged friends are also cannibals. Spiders have no qualms whatsoever about munching on their own kind, even the same species.
They eat what’s OUTSIDE.
I had a lot that puzzled me in the same way. Then I realized they were all coming in around my window, and that they were feeding well in webs just outside it. The eggs hatch near the screen or the tiny cracks, and some of the poor lost babies luck inside, to their eventual starvation.
But the outside web nests provided a steady supply.
Once I sprayed outside, the inside spiders were gone.
Are you in my house? I have 2 corners near my kitchen faucet that get a new very tiny spider in them every week or so, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out 1) how they get there, and 2) what they are eating! This is unreal.
You “keep” a spider in your kitchen?? ACK!! The spiders in your house are probably saving their appetites and are plotting to KILL YOU AND SUCK YOUR BLOOD!! <shudder>
Super"arachnaphobic"Lorie
I read one time that anywhere that humans are able to live, there are also spiders. Something like there is always a spider within 3 feet of you or some unbelievable statistic. The ones we see are the exceptions.
Lost the clipping. Suspect it was either the Chicago Trib or Discover mag.
*You didn’t lose it!!
The Spiders know…*