A Parthenogenic Tarantula... do they exist?

[Aarantula]

Hey all! Just thought I would put this up for discussion...

Now beings scorpions and tarantulas are so closely related, if their are parthanogenic scorpions... why can't the same be said for a species of spiders/ Tarantula? Is it possible that their may actually be a species out there that's parthanogenic that has not been discovered yet? I think so!

Thoughts? :

 

[alpine]

I'd imagine that there is a distinct possibility. Definitely something to consider closely

 

[Amoeba]

Plenty of parth scorps there is a possibility that there are parth Ts.

Also dud sacs aren't hard to find. There are also species that double (even triple clutch).

 

[jayefbe]

On the grand scheme of things, scorpions aren't really all that closely related to tarantulas. I mean, they are, but they diverged from one another so INCREDIBLY long ago, about 400 million years ago, that saying they're closely related isn't like saying rodents or even mammals are closely related. Just because scorpions and spiders are more closely related to each other than compared to most other animals, doesn't mean they share a very recent ancestry. There has been 400 million years in which traits unique to one group could derive. Additionally, parthenogenesis tends to be a trait that turns up on the tips of trees (they tend to only derive recently, and rarely result in future diversification).

That said, it's a possibility that tarantulas may be parthenogenic, but that's because many sexually reproducing organisms from many diverse phyla display this trait to some degree or another. It wouldn't shock me too much to learn of a spider that is able to produce a fertile sac without a male present.

 

[MajaNY]

Hello!
I have tarantula for 10 years now. Its a female.
So after 10 years of having my tarantul ALONE in terrarium, this morning my sister sends me a picture of at least 15 baby tarantulas in her terrarium!!!! We are all blown away and confused how is this possible! We know for a fact that there is no way of another tarantula fertilising her eggs because she was closed in this box forever. Also, there is no way any other small spider sneaked in and lid eggs because she kills anything that ends up in her terrarium. She has very fast reflexes and she kills any intruders in her space. So far from what i’ve been reading on here and on other forums, it says that there are no records of tarantulas fertilising their own eggs by themselves so does anybody has an answer how did my tarantula had her eggs hatched?

 

[Edan bandoot]

Hello!
I have tarantula for 10 years now. Its a female.
So after 10 years of having my tarantul ALONE in terrarium, this morning my sister sends me a picture of at least 15 baby tarantulas in her terrarium!!!! We are all blown away and confused how is this possible! We know for a fact that there is no way of another tarantula fertilising her eggs because she was closed in this box forever. Also, there is no way any other small spider sneaked in and lid eggs because she kills anything that ends up in her terrarium. She has very fast reflexes and she kills any intruders in her space. So far from what i’ve been reading on here and on other forums, it says that there are no records of tarantulas fertilising their own eggs by themselves so does anybody has an answer how did my tarantula had her eggs hatched?

Those don't look like tarantula babies, those look like dolomedes triton, probably hitchhiked on some decor or ballooned in.

 

[MajaNY]

I forgot to mention, there was at least 100 of babies, my sister says, but some of them escaped the box through a little hole, and this pictured is what is left behind.

 

[Edan bandoot]

I forgot to mention, there was at least 100 of babies, my sister says, but some of them escaped the box through a little hole, and this pictured is what is left behind.

Well they get pretty big if they are triton, around 3" leg span. Your sister is gonna have some fun house spiders lol

 

[MajaNY]

Im wondering how is it possible that some other specie spider sneaked in and laid their eggs, without my Tarantula killing them. She kills anthing that shows up in her terrarium.

 

[Hakuna]

I forgot to mention, there was at least 100 of babies, my sister says, but some of them escaped the box through a little hole, and this pictured is what is left behind.

What species of tarantula do you own?

 

[MajaNY]

Well they get pretty big if they are triton, around 3" leg span. Your sister is gonna have some fun house spiders lol

My dad said they grow very fast, couple days ago they were much smaller.

 

[cold blood]

Im wondering how is it possible that some other specie spider sneaked in and laid their eggs, without my Tarantula killing them. She kills anthing that shows up in her terrarium.

could have simply been an egg sac attached to something that went unnoticed.

 

[Neonblizzard]

Doesn't make sense at all. Unless you never look at your tarantula you'd see she'd been sat on a sac for at least a month

 

[MajaNY]

Yeah i dont live there anymore, my family takes care of her. They just told me that this morning. There is another picture here.
its probably what that 1st response wrote. Its probably that other spider’s eggs.

 

[Arachnid Addicted]

Well, as far as I know, there are nothing proving parthenogenesis in tarantulas, at all.

What we have are cases like phantom eggsacs or wc females that were already bred, in situ, and dropped a sac in captivity.

OPs case is a different spiders, like said in this thread already, its not a tarantula, not even a Mygalomorphae, but it is an Araneomorphae.

About that, there is a small note in Biology of Spiders (Foelix), where it is mentioned three cases of parthenogenesis in true spiders, here's the quote, pgs. 231-232:

"There is some evidence that parthenogenesis may occur in spiders. For instance, female Dysdera hungarica that were kept isolated from males produced egg sacs, and apparently a few of the (unfertilized) eggs developed into spiderlings and even adult spiders (Gruber, 1990). The tiny tropical spider Theotima (Ochyroceratidae) was long suspected to be parthenogenetic, since no males had ever been found. Isolated spiderlings that were raised in the laboratory all developed into females; they laid viable eggs which led to a next generation of females (Edwards et al., 2003). In the linyphiid Pityohyphantes, 1–2 % of the embryos were haploid (n = 14), which would also indicate development from unfertilized eggs (Gunnarsson and Andersson, 1992)."

I didn't look up for the articles mentioned in the book, though. So, if anyone have them, share with us.

Side note:
Just out of curiosity, since scorpions were mentioned in this thread, the article below has a case of a female Tityus metuendus, that was caught juvenile, matured in the lab and made a parthenogenesis that generated only male individuals, this mechanism is known as arrhenotoky.

Parthenogenesis in scorpions: some history - new data

Parthenogenesis, a rare phenomenon in Chelicerates, apart from mites, is reviewed in scorpions,...

www.scielo.br

Hope this might be helpful.

 

[MajaNY]

Okay! So we have it solved, thanks to yall!! I spoke to my dad, and read all what yall wrote. And he does remember now an IMPORTANT detail! He did feed her one of those spiders so its probably eggs brought from it a month ago! But he had forgotten about it. So it probably is from that “long-legged” spider from before.
Thank you all so much for your answers and your expertise!

 

[Neonblizzard]

Okay! So we have it solved, thanks to yall!! I spoke to my dad, and read all what yall wrote. And he does remember now an IMPORTANT detail! He did feed her one of those spiders so its probably eggs brought from it a month ago! But he had forgotten about it. So it probably is from that “long-legged” spider from before.
Thank you all so much for your answers and your expertise!

That's an odd choice of feeder. Wouldn't recommend giving your T anything caught from outside; they can bring in pesticides that can hurt your spider

 

[DaveM]

I didn't look up for the articles mentioned in the book, though. So, if anyone have them, share with us.

Dysdera hungarica (family: Dysderidae)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1601-5223.1992.tb00011.x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1601-5223.1994.00183.x
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-04090-4_4

(The first primary reference seems to be GRUBER J. 1990: Fatherless spiders. Newsl. Br. Arachnol. Soc. 58: 3 -- I don't have a link to that article; please share if you do.)

There are reports of parthenogenesis in other families of araneomorphs also.

Theotima minutissimus (family: Ochyroceratidae )

Observations of Theotima Minutissimus (Araneae, Ochyroceratidae), a Parthenogenetic Spider on JSTOR

It has been suggested by several authorities that at least one species of spider of the genus Theotima, family Ochyroceratidae, occurring in tropical regions in...

www.jstor.org

Triaeris stenapsis (family: Ooonopidae)

(PDF) Life-history of the parthenogenetic oonopid spider, Triaeris stenaspis (Araneae: Oonopidae)

PDF | Selected life-history traits of an oonopid spider, Triaeris stenaspis Simon, which has been introduced into greenhouses in Europe, were... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

An interesting side note, that intracellular endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia may effect parthenogenesis.

(PDF) Wolbachia and other endosymbiont infections in spiders

PDF | Maternally inherited endosymbiotic bacteria, such as Wolbachia, Rickettsia and Spiroplasma, have been shown to have wide-ranging effects on the... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

I have never seen any report of parthenogenesis in a tarantula species, or in any mygalomorph. Please inform if any cases are known.
I'm glad that the mystery at hand has been solved with a different solution.

 

[YungRasputin]

would be a curious thing - i have yet to see anything conclusive about such a thing in tarantulas - kind of a good thing tbh, there’s a lot of scorpion species i would like to keep but don’t because I don’t want to deal with the broods

 

[Dorifto]

To my girlfriend they exist, if someday one of my Ts lay an eggsac, it's because they can be "parthanogenis"