In February 2003, Herb Levi published a revision of the genus Mastophora, the first taxonomic revision of American bolas spiders since 1955. He described several new species from North and South America, and as a result, the bolas spider fauna of the USA increased from 5 species to 15 species. The egg sacs of bolas spiders are generally cryptic, yet quite distinctive among species; we will provide illustrations of the egg sacs made by several bolas spider species found in the eastern USA. Over the past 17 years, we have studied the ecology and behavior of bolas spiders in Kentucky, with emphasis on prey acquisition by Mastophora hutchinsoni. During the course of our studies, we also gathered data on seasonal timing of spiderling emergence from egg sacs of the univoltine M. hutchinsoni during 12 years between 1986 and 2002. We used data from the first three seasons to develop a degree-day model to predict timing of M. hutchinsoni emergence, and we compared the predicted emergence dates with observed emergence dates over nine subsequent seasons. Actual dates of first emergence varied among years from 12 May to 11 June. Despite this span of calendar dates, the degree-day-based predictions were accurate within plus or minus 2 days, on average, for the nine seasons during which the model was tested.
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