# Baby Snipers (Scytodes spec. Tanzania)



## Stefan2209 (Jul 2, 2006)

Hi all,

i´m a dad since this week  

Lookey, what one of my african spitters presented me....

Mom, with size reference:







Offspring:

















Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Techuser (Jul 2, 2006)

Congrats

but why are they called snipers?
do they shot web or venom?


----------



## NrthCstInverts (Jul 2, 2006)

Those are really neat looking.... but yeah, why called snipers?


----------



## buthus (Jul 2, 2006)

wildnmildpets said:
			
		

> Those are really neat looking.... but yeah, why called snipers?


http://faculty.vassar.edu/suter/1websites/spittingspider/spit3.htm


----------



## NrthCstInverts (Jul 2, 2006)

Thanks Buthus, but that link makes the explorer crash...lol.    i get the jist of it though before it kills my explorer.... thanks alot!


----------



## Techuser (Jul 2, 2006)

Wow O_O

stefan do you have any vid of yours catching prey?


----------



## buthus (Jul 2, 2006)

wildnmildpets said:
			
		

> Thanks Buthus, but that link makes the explorer crash...lol.    i get the jist of it though before it kills my explorer.... thanks alot!


There are better browser choices out there besides Interweb Exploder.  
http://www.mozilla.com/


----------



## Jonathan (Jul 6, 2006)

*!!!!!!*

Hi,
That video is amazing.  How the heck do they do that. 
Jon


----------



## Galapoheros (Jul 6, 2006)

A surprise to me to see an African Scytodes sp.  Really nice pattern on that spider.  There is a species here in the southern US.  It's pretty common here(TX).  Same hunting technique.  I just saw one today with babies under a rock.  Nice to see another species.  Thanks.


----------



## Stefan2209 (Jul 8, 2006)

Hi all,

sorry, i haven´t got a video and won´t ever have: they´re much too fast, when they hunt. You can´t even see it, so fast it happens...

The pictured slings molted for the first time this week and did quite some growing. They´re much more active now, but i´m having some troubles with getting them to eat...  

However, i´m most surprised about the reproduction rate of this species: the female, that produced this offsprings, built me already a new sac yesterday evening, talk about fast....

As there´s still another adult female with another sac here, i guess i´ll soon enough have plenty slings around...  

@ Gala...

Scytodes spec., regardless of their origin, are just extremely rare in the european hobby. To my best knowledge this genus had been introduced in europe for the first time just last year. Unfortunately it seems, that nobody is doing detailed work with this genus, when it comes to private keepers, so it´s very hard at times to figure out, how to keep them alive, especially with slings...
The pictured species from Tanzania was just a "lucky draw", as they had been "accidentally" imported. Now i really hope to find a way how to establish a breeding stem to keep them alive as "cb´s".

@ Techuser

Scytodes are spread worldwide, of course in south-america and Brazil in special, too. Perhaps it might be worth a try to just look around your house, perhaps you´ll find some...

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## bistrobob85 (Jul 8, 2006)

Wow, great job with them . They do look like fascinating spiders, i wish i could learn more about their hunting behavior... Thanks for posting those pics, the babies look sooo cute!!!! What are you feeding them, fruit flies?

 phil.


----------



## SOAD (Jul 8, 2006)

i have found a spider that have the same body structure... they are very common in m garden...


----------



## Galapoheros (Jul 8, 2006)

Stefan2209 said:
			
		

> Hi all,
> 
> sorry, i haven´t got a video and won´t ever have: they´re much too fast, when they hunt. You can´t even see it, so fast it happens...
> 
> ...



Maybe you could put a piece of melon/cantaloupe on the sub below them to attract fruit flies?  I don't know, just a thought.


----------



## Stefan2209 (Jul 9, 2006)

Hi Gala,

have to admit that i want to avoid fruit-flies at any costs, as i had some very bad experiences with raising Scytodes spec. offsprings on fruit-flies.

As i could observe just last night, this won´t even be a problem: to my delight i found my little babies were pretty capable of killing micro-crix, no problem at all. By now all of my slings are pretty fat and happy, seems like time for the next molt soon...  

Gonna keep you updated.

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## duente (Jul 9, 2006)

that clip was amazing...


----------



## Stefan2209 (Jul 15, 2006)

Hi all,

my babies are doing well so far, i have to admit, after the first troubles with getting them to accept prey, i´m now a bit surprised, how well and even more correct, how much they´re eating.  

I keep them still all together with their mom, no problem so far.

By the looks of the slings, i guess it´s molting time over the next days...



















Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Stefan2209 (Jul 22, 2006)

Hi,

man, these things are killers!

I had some, well, "bad luck", at least i thought so in the first place:

My babies molted a few days ago and are now in the second skin. Growing was quite ok, but not gigantic.
Like most species these are hungry after the molt....
That´s were my bad luck started, had to realize my pray-supllier ran out of micro-crickets, damn! Would take a week to organize some...

I was wrecked! Got some house flies as a substitute, but they seemed still far too big for the slings. Well, what else should i have done than at least try it....

Got exactly the result that i expected, the slings just paniced and ran away, damn again!

Now i just realized they somehow find a way to overpower the flies, nearly all slings are so fat, they just look like they´re gonna burst! Dropped in another fly and just 5 minutes later it was already stuck dead in their web and two slings are feeding....

Talk about taking down prey 3 times their own size.

Even more crazy:

Due to the very hot temperatures here, my last weekend fresh hatched sac of this species took two days less to molt into skin one....

An even bigger problem, these are of course even smaller and need food even faster, did exactly the same experiment:

With exactly the same outcome, even the 1. instar slings are feeding on house flies. I´d really like to know if they´re already able to hunt down the flies on their own or if their mother is killing them.

Quite fascinating lil killers!

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Gigas (Jul 22, 2006)

#Lol your really into these, dont blame you they seem pretty cool, goodluck geting those micros soon


----------



## blombo (Jul 25, 2006)

hi there, cute little snipers.. congratulation!!

Look what I found in an old bathtub the other day.   It's an endemic species (Germany).. approx bodylength about 1 cm..
She was unable to climb smooth walls..


----------



## Stefan2209 (Jul 25, 2006)

blombo said:
			
		

> hi there, cute little snipers.. congratulation!!
> 
> Look what I found in an old bathtub the other day.   It's an endemic species (Germany).. approx bodylength about 1 cm..
> She was unable to climb smooth walls..


Hi Dominik,

damn you´re lucky!

That´s Scytodes thoracica, the european spitting-spider. Are you located in the south of germany?

I´ve kept my eyes peeled for these since long, but have yet to find one.

Do you still have it? I´d be major-interested in a pic that shows a size-reference, an € for example...

Thanks for showing!

Oh, by the way, one of my adult females built me another sac already.  

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Raqua (Jul 26, 2006)

Stefan2209 said:
			
		

> Hi Dominik,
> 
> damn you´re lucky!
> 
> ...


Hello Stefan,

I have found this one already twice here ..  
Some of my pictures are here ..
http://www.pavuky.sk/foto/f_scytodidae.htm
Body lenght of this spider is less than 1cm.


----------



## chrsgr (Jul 30, 2006)

i would buy some of your african snipers. if you sell them. could you please pm me? i'm german too.


----------



## Stylopidae (Aug 18, 2006)

Stefan: in another thread, you said you had problems raising spitters on friut flies.

I'm not very good with pinheads, so fruit flies are my only option right now (I'm working on a springtail culture ATM), so I'd like to know what sorts of problems I can look forward to.


----------



## blombo (Aug 19, 2006)

Hi Stefan,

sorry for threadjacking again 
but look what I found a few days ago ^^
this one is smaller than the one above


----------



## Stefan2209 (Aug 21, 2006)

Evil Cheshire said:
			
		

> Stefan: in another thread, you said you had problems raising spitters on friut flies.
> 
> I'm not very good with pinheads, so fruit flies are my only option right now (I'm working on a springtail culture ATM), so I'd like to know what sorts of problems I can look forward to.


Hi,

i had "problems" with fruit-flies on different occassions with different species. Those problems were just that the spiders died during the molt process, they got stuck and that was it.  

The trouble with fruit-flies are, that they lack some essentials needed by the spiders for the molts. This means, if you feed your slings exclusively on Droso´s for a longer period of time, you have a high probability to kill them due to bad molts. This doesn´t have to be true for all species, but i experienced such with Scytodes spec. from french-guyane and with an Ancylometes spec.

If you use the Droso´s not as the only prey-items or just for a limited period of time, your slings should do fine, though. 

A word about springtails: all i said about Droso´s is even more true for springtails. If you have only the slightest chance, avoid these at all costs! I haven´t worked with these myself, but have several buddies who did, all with the same outcome: dead spiders.

If you´re gonna raise Scytodes spec.´s give micro-crix a try. I know they may seem quite too big to be overpowered by 1. instar Scytodes slings, but at least my tanzanian slings have no problems at all with taking those down, they´re very skilled killers.

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Stefan2209 (Aug 21, 2006)

blombo said:
			
		

> Hi Stefan,
> 
> sorry for threadjacking again
> but look what I found a few days ago ^^
> this one is smaller than the one above


Hi Dominik,

congratz, great find!

Boy, those are really tiny, aren´t they????  

Seems the adult is just as big or small, as my 4. instars are!!    Don´t even dare to think about how small the slings are....

Gonna try to raise them?

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Stefan2209 (Aug 21, 2006)

chrsgr said:
			
		

> i would buy some of your african snipers. if you sell them. could you please pm me? i'm german too.


Hi,

sorry, i´m not gonna give away one single specimen for now.

I had a third sac hatch just two days ao, that yielded as "much" as 10 slings. That makes some 50 slings of this species in different stages that i have at all. Right now, i´m experimenting with different methods of keeping and raising them, so far with success and some quite interesting indicators about social-behaviour and advantages one can use to make raising these very easy.

However, until i´ve not a steady breed going on with my own offsprings, i´m gonna keep all my specimen here with me. Last year another Scytodes species had been sold and apparently most buyers did not know how to take proper care of them, which resulted in a "lost" species.
This is something i´m gonna avoid with these. As soon, as i have mature specimen, i´m gonna post my methods of raising, than comes breeding and if this should be successfull i´m gonna give selling and spreading a second thought.

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Stylopidae (Aug 21, 2006)

Stefan2209 said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> i had "problems" with fruit-flies on different occassions with different species. Those problems were just that the spiders died during the molt process, they got stuck and that was it.
> 
> ...


I'm still having trouble getting micro crix and they don't seem to be interested in isopods:wall: 

I'm stopping by the pet store today...I'll figure something out.

How long do you think I have until feeding them with friut flies will become a problem?


How long will it take a female spider to make another sack? I'm pretty sure I saw my two adult specimens mate.

Come to think of it...how do you sex these things?

Thanks for all the help, man...really appreciate it. 
Pics will come soon


----------



## Stefan2209 (Aug 23, 2006)

Hey Cesh...,

now i understand your problem much better.

However, on one occassion i had exactly the same troubles: a fresh hatched brood and no micro-crix available...

I was wrecked! So i bought the next smallest prey items available out of pure desperation: house-flies. Seemed much too big for the tiny creepies...

First observation yielded exactly the expected results, my babies were just running away...

However next morning showed some nice surprise: dead flies and fat slings...

Not the ideal solution, but as a saying goes: if the devil gets hungry, he starts eating flies.

If you can manage to get hold of some, it´d at least be worth a try.

Just to let you know.

Greetings,

Stefan


----------



## Stylopidae (Aug 23, 2006)

Stefan2209 said:
			
		

> Hey Cesh...,
> 
> now i understand your problem much better.
> 
> ...


I tried the smallest crickets out of the shipments of smalls I was getting...whattdya know, dead crix (hopefully not from natural causes).

I'm going to try to capture flies using a net and dog poo...don't quite know if it's the best way to do it but it's all I got since I can't seem to get pinheads no matter what I do.


----------



## Galapoheros (Aug 24, 2006)

Are the babies still close together in any kind of webbing?  If you're desperate, you could chop up really small pieces of crickets and drop in the webbing and just hope.


----------



## Stylopidae (Aug 25, 2006)

Galapoheros said:
			
		

> Are the babies still close together in any kind of webbing?  If you're desperate, you could chop up really small pieces of crickets and drop in the webbing and just hope.


They're in webbing, but I have to destroy it to open the container. They *seem* bigger now than when you shipped them to me, but I haven't seen any moults to back that up.

However, you did send me a male and a female specimen. :razz:  The female specimen is gravid again and I should expect another sack soon.

Either way, I'm getting a lobster roach colony here soon and those should be there before the next sack hatches.

I *think* the newborns should be small enough to feed the spitters.


----------



## Jonathan (Aug 25, 2006)

Hi,
Why not start a cricket colony.  I have too many crickets that are the size of grains of sand that are useless to me.  They are hella easy to cultivate.  Almost seem like a problem.  Generations keep popping up every week or so.  These guys are as small if not smaller than fruit flies.  I don't see why you couldn't feed your spitters on these.
Jon


----------

