About six weeks ago, I wrote about the huntsman spider guarding her egg sack in our rain gauge. Since then, we’ve been away, it’s rained a little bit (not enough to endanger the egg sack), and every day I’ve been out to check if the babies had arrived.

I’d actually come to the conclusion that it was likely that the spider was guarding her egg sack futilely, since the Australian Museum site suggested that they would hatch in about three weeks, and the three week mark came and went three weeks ago.

But this morning, as I looked inside the rain gauge, I saw this:

See the little hole?

So I picked up the rain gauge, and lo and behold there was this:

There appear to be some white babies with transparent legs, and some brown babies with brown legs. Apparently they hatch white/transparent and then become browner over days and weeks after they’ve hatched. You can see Mum down on the right hand side, and in the middle is what remains of the egg sack.

Here’s another picture that shows Mum a little bit more.

It’s ridiculous, but I feel like a proud grandparent….