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Portable Parent

© Rina Abdul Jamal

I am pretty sure that the most famous portable parent should be the mother kangaroo. When we see a mother with its child in her pouch, we would think how convenient it is to have our mother within reach all the time, of course, only when we are small and vulnerable.

But that is just one child. Can a kangaroo carry, say, 40 joeys at one time? A mother wolf spider can.

Wolf spider is also known as the ground spider or the hunting spider. Unlike most spiders, it hunts for its meal instead of spinning a web and waiting for any unsuspecting preys to get trapped. Some wolf spiders dig a hole and live in a burrow and others make a hole under a rock. It now has two ways to catch prey. First, it can go out and hunt with its well-developed eyes and second, it can wait underground and feel any vibrations potential prey may make and pounce on it.

Wolf spiders can be found almost all over the word and they occupy a large range of habitats including, grasslands, open areas, forests but would probably prefer shrubs and tall grass areas where a plentiful supply of insects reside. The wide-range dispersal of the wolf spider is probably due to their amazing habit of carrying their children around.

This is how it goes. After a mating ritual, which usually includes visual signals from the male so that it will not be mistaken for a meal, the eggs will then be fertilized. Then, the female will be carrying the eggs in a sac attached to its spinneret. When the eggs are hatched, the mother will pry the sac open and the young spiders will come out crawling on to the mother's back. In some cases, the mother may be carrying up to a hundred young spiders! This will go on for about a week or so.

Picture: Wolf Spider With Babies

Usually, when a young spider is knocked over, it can still hang on and return to its mother using its silken lifeline. Occasionally an unfortunate young one will be knocked off and unable to hang on. When this happens, the mother wolf spider, as caring as she seems to be, will not retrieve its fallen child. It is probably for the better.

One interesting note, it has also been observed that when two females meet and engage in a tussle, the winning mother will "adopt" the loser's children and let them ride on her.

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