Breeding Blackwidow

[FatherOfWidows]

Every time I have seen a black widow I catch it before someone kills it. Black widow webbing was used by american soldiers to strap scopes on and now the military is trying to make bullet proof clothing out of the webbing. An average of three deaths a year..... I live in a small community and people cause more deaths than these beautiful arachnids; needless to say they are misunderstood. One thing I have noticed is everyone I have caught was pregnant. I would originally wait a couple of days after the eggs have hatched and take the remaining babies out to the woods to release. This year I have decided to try to raise them to full grown. Took a couple of attempts but I have finally gotten the babies to be juveniles and can now see the coloring of them. I have now 26 juveniles and five more egg sacks. I don't want to let them go but I want to raise the up coming babies. (there are three mothers and I plan on keeping a couple of babies from each mother)

 

[Yentlequible]

I caught a wild female that already had a sac. A MASSIVE sac, I might add. Probably 200-300 in it. She may have been bred by a male for that one, but every month or two, she keeps on laying fertile sacs even though there is no male. The ones produced in captivity without a male were quite a bit smaller though.

Edit: So I was wrong about them not needing a male. I didn't know that they could store the males sperm for so long. That explains how I keep getting so many sacs.

 

[MarkmD]

Well your correct in saying they hardly ever cause deaths, just some unexpected people in the way or they get in the way (hear say as its both), you are trying and doing a good thing by raising the eggsacs to juvies, I would let 95% of them go and continue breeding them and letting them go etc.

 

[Oreo]

They can reproduce asexually. I caught a wild female that already had a sac. A MASSIVE sac, I might add. Probably 200-300 in it. She may have been bred by a male for that one, but every month or two, she keeps on laying fertile sacs even though there is no male. The ones produced in captivity without a male were quite a bit smaller though.

Latrodectus cannot reproduce asexually. You're right about her being bred by a male if she produced slings, and she would be able to produce numerous viable sacs (as long as there is sperm stored) from a successful encounter with the male. When I bred them, mated females would produce multiple sacs, with each successive sac having fewer slings. Any chance you have a photo (dorsal and ventral) of your spiders?

 

[FatherOfWidows]

They do not produce asexually; after they breed the female stores the sperm and uses it for the rest of her lifespan laying egg sacks. you have already caught a widow who had a mate.

---------- Post added 02-19-2014 at 11:44 PM ----------

yeah but it kind of sucks. I mean I know about ten survive, but i have managed to keep apx 50 per egg sack and it's kind of depressing to let them go. the deaths usually are caused by people with weak immune systems, elderly/kids

 

[Yentlequible]

They do not produce asexually; after they breed the female stores the sperm and uses it for the rest of her lifespan laying egg sacks. you have already caught a widow who had a mate.

Sorry about that. I didn't even think of the possibility of them being able to store the sperm.

---------- Post added 02-20-2014 at 05:26 PM ----------

Latrodectus cannot reproduce asexually. You're right about her being bred by a male if she produced slings, and she would be able to produce numerous viable sacs (as long as there is sperm stored) from a successful encounter with the male. When I bred them, mated females would produce multiple sacs, with each successive sac having fewer slings. Any chance you have a photo (dorsal and ventral) of your spiders?

I don't have any clear photos of any of my widows. None that would help at least. I'd have to pull her out of her jar to get some good pictures.

 

[Widowman10]

Black widow webbing was used by american soldiers to strap scopes on and now the military is trying to make bullet proof clothing out of the webbing.

not to be nit-picky (hope it doesn't come across like that, just wanted to clarify in case others read this thread), but the military used Latrodectus webbing for the reticle in the scope! pretty cool stuff, i imagine they wouldn't need very many strands as the webbing is naturally pretty thick and strong. and yes, they've been experimenting with webbing, but they can't seem to quite reproduce the exact same structure / composition as the natural stuff! nature does it much better than we can (for now!).

Latrodectus cannot reproduce asexually. You're right about her being bred by a male if she produced slings, and she would be able to produce numerous viable sacs (as long as there is sperm stored) from a successful encounter with the male. When I bred them, mated females would produce multiple sacs, with each successive sac having fewer slings. Any chance you have a photo (dorsal and ventral) of your spiders?

thanks for clarifying oreo, well done and you are correct, they will store sperm and continue producing sacs until the supply diminishes. if sac numbers drop below what you want them to be, another mating with a male will boost sac numbers again! fun stuff!

 

[The Snark]

The reticle for extreme high quality telescopic sights requires a fiber of precise non varying thickness, high durability and tensile strength, and a precise unvarying refraction index. As it has turned out, synthetic polymers can come close to perfect on any two of the three requirements but only the lowly spiders web can repetitively produce all three.


PS Every time I read the headers of the posts this one catches my eye and cracks me up as I always recall breeding horses. Lead your mare spider out into an open corral and get her to flash the stud. Lead or let the stud in, depending on his competence and disposition, get a bunch of rowdy stable girls to sit on the corral railing yelling ribald comments and there you go.