Getting Val ready for acrylic coating.

Going to test it on one of the crumpled damaged girls from last year first.

Make sure it works as I expect so I can get her sealed up and preserved before too much moisture loss occurs, she's so close to fully intact it's a shame to waste the opportunity.

Any of you folks have experience using acrylic spray or whatnot for sealing up insect and arachnid specimens, lemme know, I've got lots of experience working with the living ones, but my attempts at keeping them looking pretty after finding them dead aren't as successful.

Oh yeah, this is Valkyrie, for those of you wondering "wait, Val is a spider? what?" right about now: http://imgur.com/gallery/KUOw1 our most recent porch spider, a big pretty Argiopes Aurantia, or zig-zag/writing/black and yellow orb weaver.

I was able to get a better idea of how best to transfer them to new locations due to her trying to set up a couple of times across higher traffic areas, and of course I enjoyed getting to handle her. They're very neat, wobbling around gently planting each leg and dragging silk across your hands, and once again utterly and completely docile. They don't have medically interesting venom, but even then they just aren't interested in biting. Their defense is "HEY I'M BLACK AND YELLOW, PROBABLY POISONOUS, DON'T EAT ME" and then trying to slink away if something knocks them off their web, not being aggressive and fanging some moron (me!) who keeps picking them up.

Still bummed about her falling, of course.

Looking at her web there is a loose link over to her gutter section right above where she landed, so I presume something happened there to either startle her or a wind gust hit while she was getting ready to attach an anchor line maybe.

Posted the first attempt I made at getting her tucked away and ready for preservation after finding her with a busted abdomen on the ground yesterday: http://imgur.com/gallery/74b5Z

I'd rather have her killing pests (saw a mosquito in the room just before taking these actually) and getting a chance to leave behind an egg sac for next year, but being able to have a big pretty display beats the hell out of finding her after the ants had started taking her apart.

It's neat having her sitting over there on the dresser like this, when I went to show the mother-in-law how I had her set up she thought I had found another live one, due to it looking like she was standing in my hand and all.

I never noticed they've got fuzzy tummies!

I mean, I knew about the silvery hairs on top of the thorax, but the abdomen hairs are always smoothed down so you don't get a chance to see them very well, or the eyes for that matter.

I'll probably take some pictures when I clear her web with a rake later to show how I moved her, for folks who are curious about it, and don't mind them being around but worry that they're in an awkward location. Using a rake to gently lift the web away from the supports while keeping it taut is ideal for keeping them calm, as they'll actually just ride around on the rake if the web is still holding her up.

That way you could take the rake and place it somewhere you would prefer them to set up and let them move off at their own pace, or encourage them via a light prod on the rear of the abdomen with a twig or whatnot so they scoot off towards a suitable bush or tree to keep them safe in a better spot, even if you may be leery about actually scooping them up to handle.

Should you wish to try that, initially stay low, the first time you prod them off the web they might topple over off the side of the rake, you can let them roll back over if you don't know the best way to right a spider, and then just setting your hand in front of them is enough for them to walk right up on it. You can practice a few hand-to-hand swaps while keeping them low, and then wait until you feel them attach an anchor (they'll stop and wiggle their rump against your hand) before lifting them higher.

Leaving your fingers kinda loosely cupped but pointing up and towards you can help them calm down and hang comfortably rather than continually making you swap hands. They're better climbers than walkers, so having them move up and down is easier on them and less stressful.

If they do fall, it should be after they've anchored themselves, and you can link the anchors across your hands when handling them, so they'll end up doing a sort of bungee drop and then slow down, at which point you can just let them gently drop into your hand.

I'll make a point to demonstrate some of these when I do the web transfer explanation, it's actually hard to do when you're focused on keeping the spiderlady safe, you know?