Margaret and her babies

This is Margaret:
Margaret is a Pholcus phalangioides, or a cellar spider.  These spiders were originally an import from Europe, but can now be found all over North America, mostly hanging out in basements.

Yes, in this picture, Margaret is hanging onto a writhing ball of legs.  I don't think anyone who is afraid of spiders would find their way here to begin with, but if you did, you are probably not feeling very comfortable right now.

This appears to be a blog mostly about my mistakes.  Margaret's egg sac was obvious for weeks before it became all squirmy.  And what did I do about it?  Well not much, I guess I wasn't even sure it was fertile (I did not breed Margaret, and from the time she came to me from a breeder until the egg sac popped out, she was all by herself).  And I had no desire for spider babies, I definitely did not ask for a possibly pregnant spider to be sent my way. Anyway, the eggs hatched and about 30 babies came out, and what did I do about it then?  Not much.  They had a lot of space to spread out, and they were too tiny for me to catch anyway, and truly, I just didn't know what to do about them.  They seemed to stick fairly close to their mother so I thought I would just wait and see what happened. Well, after a few weeks there were none.  Or so I thought.  I assumed they had cannibalized each other.  Then one night I happened to be looking up towards the ceiling, and I could see them, tiny (but not as tiny as they were) little spiders all around the edge of the room where the ceiling meets the wall, about 5 inches apart. I could see several of them were eating up the fruit flies that regularly escape.  Even for a spider lover, this was a little much to take.  I won't tell you what came next, it wasn't pretty.