# Very Cool Cyclocosmia sp



## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

Very excited...hope I can get them breeding if we have any males.  Been wanting these for some time now and finally got ahold of a batch of them.  THey are just awesome   THey have a tribal looking symbol on thier back ends and use it to plug thier hole for protection. 

Good article
http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/rbz/biblio/54/54rbz119-124.pdf 













Pictures taken by Mike(Troll) and posted with permission.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 12, 2010)

crazy crazy bug butt action there



are these the chinese ones?


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*chinese*



cacoseraph said:


> crazy crazy bug butt action there
> 
> 
> 
> are these the chinese ones?


Yup they are.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 12, 2010)

KenTheBugGuy said:


> Yup they are.


nicest way EVER of saying RTFM


(the link he provided and i ignored is a sweet little paper on *Chinese* plugbutt trapdoors =P )



edit:
ooh, baby. a key.  going to key them out?  if you post pics it could be a good example of how importing dealers can do things right 

assuming it is one of the two in the paper, could be easy and counting plug butt ribs... otherwise scoping out the spermethecae when one sheds (or dies...)


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

cacoseraph said:


> nicest way EVER of saying RTFM
> 
> 
> (the link he provided and i ignored is a sweet little paper on *Chinese* plugbutt trapdoors =P )
> ...



We are going to key them out actually.   We are pretty sure we have a couple of one species and many of the Ricketti but we need to go and count the ribs still.  Just have a to find a night where we can take pictures and label them all to match them back up to the pictures after them.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 12, 2010)

and that is the down side to keying... taking meticulous pics, not mixing up what pics go with what specimens, etc




i'm looking at:
http://research.amnh.org/iz/spiders/catalog/CTENIZIDAE.html
and for gen. Cyclocosmia i see:
lannaensis Schwendinger, 2005....................China, Thailand
latusicosta Zhu, Zhang & Zhang, 2006....................China
ricketti (Pocock, 1901)....................China
and maybe
siamensis Schwendinger, 2005....................Thailand




SCHWENDINGER, Peter J. Two new Cyclocosmia (Araneae: Ctenizidae) from Thailand
abstract etc: 





> Two new Cyclocosmia (Araneae: Ctenizidae) from Thailand. - Two new species of the peculiar trapdoor spider
> genus Cyclocosmia, C. siamensis sp. n. and C. lannaensis sp. n., are described from male and female specimens
> collected in Thailand and are compared with C. ricketti (Pocock) from China. Notes are given on taxonomic
> characters, variation, relationships, biology and the distribution of all three species.
> ...


 you have latusicosta and ricketti already.  you could do a complete key for the known species of that genus with this other paper


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*yah*



cacoseraph said:


> and that is the down side to keying... taking meticulous pics, not mixing up what pics go with what specimens, etc


Tis a pain but man I am just happy to have these guys and really want to breed them so definately going to take the time to figure out thier species....especially since that article gave me a fairly easy way to do it.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 12, 2010)

actually yeah, that article you linked discusses a ton of differences between all four of those species... and compares them to the american cousins 


heck of an article 


edit:

C. lannaensis is the only one of the four that has more complex spermethecae.  the other three have more simple parallel straight tube types.  lanna has more involved wasp wasted endings.

C. rick and C. latu have smooth disc ribs that lack setae, the lanna and siam are more hairy =P


edit2:

so, i think the only ambiguity that could exist is between lanna and siam. in theory you should not be in range of siamensis... so you are basically good to go, i think 

it should be unambiguous for all.  

lanna = only one with goofy sperme's
siamensis = hairy w/o goofy sperme's
latu and ricket are subject of paper 



and all just normal macro shots, hopefully... no messing around with a microscope necessary if you have adult female sheds or disecteds.  microscope pics would be AWESOME, though.   

... i need to get a microscope


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## cacoseraph (Apr 12, 2010)

*Ahem*

the simpler spermethecae'ed species are prime for being er, force bred or manually bred if the male gets munched.  worth thinking about if you might have a highly finite amount of mature males


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*interesting*



cacoseraph said:


> *Ahem*
> 
> the simpler spermethecae'ed species are prime for being er, force bred or manually bred if the male gets munched.  worth thinking about if you might have a highly finite amount of mature males


Thats interesting I will have to call and talk to you about that more just in case....


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## billopelma (Apr 12, 2010)

I was at a reptile show yesterday and one dealer had a batch of chinese imports
including one of these that I found interesting enough to snap a pic of.
This one looks to be C. ricketti according to the key...







Bill


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

billopelma said:


> I was at a reptile show yesterday and one dealer had a batch of chinese imports
> including one of these that I found interesting enough to snap a pic of.
> This one looks to be C. ricketti according to the key...
> 
> ...


Yup I count about 28 ribs which would mean most likely Ricketti


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*curious*



billopelma said:


> I was at a reptile show yesterday Bill


What show and do you remember who?  Just curious who else has these guys.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 12, 2010)

the sworl work on their backend looks like a sort of four nostril demon baboon to me

i wonder if there is enough individual variation to make a backend shot like that a "fingerprint"?


i notice on bill's that there is a bifurcation on the second rib from the top on the right hand side.  that is classic fingerprint identification point of similarity type stuff!

edit:
hell, i was just thinking. with the fact the key gives a rib count RANGE for both species i bet there is a pretty darn large amount of individual variability.   would be interesting, maybe, to track rib counts and see if there is anything there.  through maybe ranges, offsprings, etc


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## billopelma (Apr 12, 2010)

> What show and do you remember who? Just curious who else has these guys.


Show was in Manchester NH. Sorry, don't know the name of the dealer, was one of the larger ones there. Did mostly reptiles, inverts where largely typical WC imports with typical common names...

Bill


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## BiologicalJewels (Apr 12, 2010)

"butt" being convex or concave... kind of a biggie if you only have two chinese species... it's either laticosta or ricketti


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*yup*



balam said:


> "butt" being convex or concave... kind of a biggie if you only have two chinese species... it's either laticosta or ricketti


yup..thats why what we used first now we have to count ribs to make sure


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## billopelma (Apr 12, 2010)

I may have jumped the gun on this ID... 
Though the rib count would seem to point to ricketti, it has the raised area in the upper muscle impressions as in latusicosta (if I'm understanding the description properly). It also states that there are two ribs running dorsoventrally with 20-23 ribs radially on either side. So if you don't count the top and bottom ribs it gets close to 23... Plus the convex caudal disc...

Bill


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*Id*



billopelma said:


> I may have jumped the gun on this ID...
> Though the rib count would seem to point to ricketti, it has the raised area in the upper muscle impressions as in latusicosta (if I'm understanding the description properly). It also states that there are two ribs running dorsoventrally with 20-23 ribs radially on either side. So if you don't count the top and bottom ribs it gets close to 23... Plus the convex caudal disc...
> 
> Bill


As far as I can tell it was 27 minus the 2 and still 25.  I plan on taking pictures of all mine and will eventually post them here so we can all compare what I think is ID'ed correctly.  That will maybe give us a better chance if we can find both species in my group of what the 2 really look like and the differences.


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## syndicate (Apr 12, 2010)

Neat spiders!
If I ever get down to Florida I'd love to try and find some _Cyclocosmia torreya_!
Good luck breeding them over there Ken!I'd love to see an image of a mature male if you have any.
-Chris


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## KenTheBugGuy (Apr 12, 2010)

*males*



syndicate said:


> Neat spiders!
> If I ever get down to Florida I'd love to try and find some _Cyclocosmia torreya_!
> Good luck breeding them over there Ken!I'd love to see an image of a mature male if you have any.
> -Chris


Unfortunately none seem to be mature yet thats why I fear they are all females.  Have not gone through them all with a fine comb yet though


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## John Apple (Apr 12, 2010)

Ron Billingsly had them at our taylor show here in Michigan...heoffered them up at a dealer price [secret] and a consumer price of 70


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## PsychoSpider (Apr 12, 2010)

billopelma said:


> Show was in Manchester NH. Sorry, don't know the name of the dealer, was one of the larger ones there. Did mostly reptiles, inverts where largely typical WC imports with typical common names...
> 
> Bill


I was their also,the thing looked cool.Sry for being off topic, but I had to.


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## the toe cutter (Apr 12, 2010)

*Awesome trapdoors*

Hey Ken, well I see you got some in finally! The same time I asked if you could get any about a month and a half ago, I asked Josh at Outback Reptiles and they just got some in last week as well. REAL nice healthy looking specimens, so if you are looking for any more you could give them a call and see if they have any left. I'm sure they still have quite a few, they were a little on the pricey side! Good luck with these guys, it would be fantastic to see some American cb slings. I have a friend in the Guang Xi province, who was telling me that when a group of these are located they get extirpated due to overcollecting pretty quickly!


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## mitchnast (Apr 14, 2010)

Well, that does it, i'm going to have to be extra good and ask santa for a , occult-label ribbed-buttplug trapdoor spider.


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## Philth (Apr 15, 2010)

*observations*

I've recently obtained some of these as well.  Unfortunately 2 of mine came in DOA, but it gave me the opportunity to get a close look at them.  I havent had time to count the ribs, and I've only skimmed the paper ( thanks for providing that Ken) as Im just getting to taking pics of them.  Although I have noticed a difference in the 2 DOA's that I have.  I believe all the spiders I have are females as well.

The largest one that came in (DOA) has a flat abdominal disc, as the other 3 I have it protrudes.  Since all these spiders are wild caught its unclear if the shape changes as they grow older. ( but I have my doubts )

Heres some pics for comparison...






Another angle






larger "flat" 






smaller "protruding"  






Later, Tom


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## patotxiki (Apr 15, 2010)

Wow .....amazing spiders.


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## syndicate (Apr 16, 2010)

Excellent photos Tom!
-Chris


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## BiologicalJewels (Apr 16, 2010)

Yet, I would say these last two were both C. latusicosta, the elevation of the "butt" may be due to many factors, age, molt proximity, food in gut.
They both seem to have the extra bump inside of the top muscle attachements.

Interestingly enogh Ken, I'd say you are going to have a hard time breeding C. ricketti?, according to the key, no males are known , either not been found, or could be parthenogenetic... unlikely, but oh well, just going to have to raise them, hope for a sac, raise the slings given you do get a sac, get ne of those to produce a sac for you... would be really cool though


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## ZergFront (Apr 16, 2010)

Wow, nature is amazing! At first glance they would look fake. Surprising such anatomy can exist. Wonder how different they are internally..

 (begins some searching around for Cyclocosmia via Google)


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## beetleman (Apr 16, 2010)

wow! very interesting spiders:clap: hmmm.....i wanna get some of these.


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## ftorres (Apr 16, 2010)

Hello,
I agree with Balam, Toms pics could be the same C. lat and not C rik

I got 6 of them and only one with the flatter pattern, it died a couple days later.

I think mine are C lats, I am just going by the concave and convexe ID.

regards

francisco


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## BiologicalJewels (Apr 17, 2010)

regarding the one that passed... internal structure lead me to believe the rear end of the opisthosoma is definitely expansible, that is to say, without pushing it's own biological "architecture" . Some cotton showed me that 
So... I would say with some certainty that the difference in the elevation of the "butt" is due to both, age and gut content... but mostly the latter.


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## Gnat (Jul 14, 2010)

*C. ricketti*

i picked this guy up at Repticon in Atlanta on July 10. it was sold a C. ricketti and i counted the ribs and looks like it may be. what im looking for is a care sheet for these guys. right now its in a tall 32 oz deli cup on a mix of about 75% sand 25% coco fiber. it has eaten once and is head down in a starter hole i made but has not tried to burrow at all since i got it. i think my substrate mix has too much sand in it, the spider looked to have mud caked on his legs and such. any captive care info would be profoundly appreciated.


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## Obelisk (Jul 28, 2010)

These spiders are awesome! I've seen them before, but I had no idea they have the tribal-looking pattern on their abdomens. 

I was in fact checking this out this link just now...... and only realized in the last pic that it's a spider (though I did notice the leg in the second-last pic):

http://www.geekfill.com/2010/07/28/let-me-take-a-closer-look-oh-no-wtf/


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## beetleman (Jul 28, 2010)

i just got 1 aswell,very cool spider:clap:yeah that tribal on the abdomen.....amazing.


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## marclar (Jul 30, 2010)

Can you post some pictures, these spiders are really intresting.


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## davisfam (Jul 31, 2010)

*What a craaazy behind.*

Neat looking spider!


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