# Heterothele villosella



## Bill S (Jul 11, 2011)

Had a fun surprise this morning.  Back some time ago I set up a communal tank for _Heterothele villosella_.  I put five adult spiders into it, but ended up removing one female who couldn't seem to settle down and build a web.  Then back in May I noticed that one of the females in the communal tank had an egg sac.  Cool!  I watched and waited for babies to appear.  Then one day ONE baby appeared in the web.  ONE.  Well, better than none.  But by surprise, several babies appeared in the kritter keeper that the lone female lives in.  Hadn't realized she had an egg sac - so that was a pleasant surprise.  Then over the past week I've been seeing several more babies in the communal tank, so I guessed another of the females had secretely produced.  But....  This morning I looked into the communal tank - and called for my wife to come take a look.  Babies were swarming up from between some of the "logs" in the tank.  My wife guessed at maybe fifty babies - all fat and well fed and obviously past at least a couple molts.

Now I've got to figure out a way to remove some of those babies without destroying the dense web structures of the colony.  (If any of you are going to the ATS conference later this month, you might see some of these babies there - maybe at the raffle table.)

Reactions: Like 2


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## Glossworks (Jul 11, 2011)

Well ain't that just a pleasant surprise! Congrats!


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## mcluskyisms (Jul 12, 2011)

That's awesome. 

Would you be able to get some pic's of the communal set up you have? I have four grown on slings of these and would love to make a communal set up once they have been bred in the future.


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## Bill S (Jul 12, 2011)

mcluskyisms said:


> That's awesome.
> 
> Would you be able to get some pic's of the communal set up you have? I have four grown on slings of these and would love to make a communal set up once they have been bred in the future.


It's not very photogenic, but I'll see what I can do.  In the meantime, here's a description:

Ten gallon tank with a three-inch layer of coco fiber on the bottom.  Several "logs" of mesquite from the woodpile outside the house - Two- or three-inch thick pieces cut to the length of the tank and piled loosely around the back and sides of the tank.  This wood has been outside for years and is heavily weathered, and I heated it in the oven to kill mites and other arachnids that were sure to be there.  (Recluse spiders and Centruroides scorpions are common there.)  This provides a lot of hiding places, and the Heterothele will web up whatever you give them.  I also have a couple small petri dishes for water, and these have to be wiped clean of webbing every once in a while.  Folding screen top as a cover.  I've also covered the back and sides of the tank (on the outside) with dark construction paper so that it looks nicer.


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## advan (Jul 12, 2011)

Congrats on the little ones!


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## dianedfisher (Jul 13, 2011)

What an awesome surprise!  The females will often double and triple clutch, but you have hit the jackpot.  These are such cool little bugs.  I'm glad you had the tank secure.  You could have ended up with some very small house guests.
Diane


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## Bill S (Jul 13, 2011)

dianedfisher said:


> I'm glad you had the tank secure.  You could have ended up with some very small house guests.


That's what happened with my Holotheles last year.  Actually, the tank the colony is in is secured (mosquito netting under the screen top), but the other female is in a kritter keeper.  I'm sure the babies when they first appeared could have crawled out of the container - but they didn't.  In both cages the babies are staying in the mothers' webs.  I decided to use the kritter keeper bunch as an experiment, and set the KK into a tray of water (a moat to keep wandering babies from wandering too far), and have otherwise just left things alone.  I started off just feeding crickets to the mother, and the babies grew fast and fat.  That tells me that Mom feeds her babies.  At this point the babies in the KK are big enough that I don't think they could easily escape the cage - and I still only see them in the web.  They don't wander to other parts of the cage.  And at the slightest disturbance they dive down into the tunnels that the mother made in the web.


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## Bill S (Jul 20, 2011)

mcluskyisms said:


> Would you be able to get some pic's of the communal set up you have?


Here are a couple shots my wife took.  The first shows the general look of the cage, the second is a closer view of a mom and babies.  (If you look closely at the first picture you may see some of the other babies.)


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## Bill S (Jul 26, 2011)

One surprise I've gotten from these guys - I thought the babies would need to take very small food items, like small crickets.  But here's a pic of a mob of babies swarming an adult cricket.  (The second one they took this evening.)

Reactions: Like 1


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## AbraxasComplex (Jul 26, 2011)

Yep, amazing swarmers. In fact you can feed an entire communal tank on prekilled adult crickets. All sizes come out of the woodwork and feed.


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## mcluskyisms (Jul 26, 2011)

Bill S said:


> One surprise I've gotten from these guys - I thought the babies would need to take very small food items, like small crickets.  But here's a pic of a mob of babies swarming an adult cricket.  (The second one they took this evening.)


Awesome shot!!!

I certainly need a commune of these.


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## Bill S (Jul 26, 2011)

AbraxasComplex said:


> Yep, amazing swarmers. In fact you can feed an entire communal tank on prekilled adult crickets. All sizes come out of the woodwork and feed.


That's what was cool with this series of crickets.  Babies of different sizes wading in among adults.  But I hadn't expected them to dismember the crickets.  I'm used to seeing a single food item being reduced to a single bolus, but these guys would rip the crickets into smaller chunks and then carry the chunks off to different parts of the web.

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mcluskyisms said:


> I certainly need a commune of these.


You do.  These are at the moment my favorite communal.  They've got the most elaborate web complex and the adults are frequently out where you can see them.  And the feeding swarms are just too cool.


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## mcluskyisms (Jul 26, 2011)

Bill S said:


> You do.  These are at the moment my favorite communal.  They've got the most elaborate web complex and the adults are frequently out where you can see them.  And the feeding swarms are just too cool.


I have 4 grown on slings here and I must say I have become very interested in their behavior (especially hunting prey). So once these are adult I will hopefully get chance to breed them and have a communal of my own.


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## AGT Exotics (Jul 15, 2017)

very cool stuff! now I'm even more excited about getting my batch of villosella ill have 6 or 7 coming next week!


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