Arana Polita - Chicken Spider Diary

[AbraxasComplex]

Sac #1 has been laid. Surprisingly this is from the female that molted last and was only paired with 2 of the males and not the full 4 I had at the time (like the other 2 females).

 

[brotony101]

Best of luck Abraxas!

 

[Tarac]

I do have a couple of males nearly on their way out. Not sure how I should preserve said specimens so they survive a trip without turning to a gelatinous mass.

I also hope I get viable sacs this time and will send a few slings off. Who do you suggest? Rick West is nearby.

I suspect using acetone will do the trick. The key to preserving molecular structure of DNA and such is to rapidly dehydrate so nucleases, etc. are inactive. It will rapidly dry them out, especially if you use cold acetone. May have to soak a bit, ~24 hrs, so this could be best achieved in a freezer or fridge if the freezer is not large enough to hold an acetone-proof vessel in it.

Works for Lepidopterans and Odonatids. For little specimens usually just straight silica- same principle functioning.

This is great news, I would love a Pampho communal that is thriving so well.

 

[Trav]

Awesome! How do these differ from the "Pamphobeteus antinous (Iquitos Peru)" thats available in the european hobby?

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

I know these are more of the same, but here are more night time photos of my Pamphobeteus sp. Chicken Spider. 3 were out and about last night.

Awsome!!!
Looks like a small army of Goliath birdeaters , these are almost the same size ehh?

 

[sjl197]

Yes please preserve specimens, especially as i think you/someone went to the trouble of getting collecting and export permits, which was unusual in this hobby. And if you do preserve, do make data labels with as much detail on history as possible. E.g. Wild source location, collector, import details, then culture information like age of maturity and date of death/preservation.

First killing in the freezer is probably best. Also good for short term preservation, provided specimen inside a solid box/tub that wont get crushed. Then longer term preserve in Ethanol or IMS, typically 70% for morphology. Then keen cool. [a specimen soaked in 70% ethanol can then be mailed shipped, provided there is only minimal free liquid - there are many shipping regulations]. If you want to preserve tissue for DNA remove a whole leg3 from either a dead or live spider and put that into absolute alcohol. Probably best to ask at a science dept. at local university or school. Acetone and isopopyl are bad for making specimens go brittle, i suggest avoid those in favour of ethanol where possible.

 

[AbraxasComplex]

So going against my typical mantra of letting the mother nurse the sac I ended up grabbing it today. It is at the 32 day mark. No eggs with legs and I do not see any eggs developing when I used a light to illuminate the eggs from beneath though the average temperature range with the female on the warm side (she was on the cool side) was 72-76'F. I removed 2 black ones, and 2 that had started to go bad (small brown rotten spot on both). Since I typically do not incubate egg sacs on my own I am apprehensive. Do they still appear viable? Or am I going to be nursing a dud?

Also I am considering getting a clean 10 gallon tank with a heat pad on the outside and placing the incubator inside said tank to decrease development time, otherwise my place averages around 70'F. I feel that this may extend development and could hinder their growth. Opinions from experienced keepers?


Light underneath, but my phone camera could not capture the glow.

No light, camera flash.

Oh and anyone feel like counting them all? Haha.

 

[cmcghee358]

I counted 177 eggs.

 

[Tarac]

Yes please preserve specimens, especially as i think you/someone went to the trouble of getting collecting and export permits, which was unusual in this hobby. And if you do preserve, do make data labels with as much detail on history as possible. E.g. Wild source location, collector, import details, then culture information like age of maturity and date of death/preservation.

First killing in the freezer is probably best. Also good for short term preservation, provided specimen inside a solid box/tub that wont get crushed. Then longer term preserve in Ethanol or IMS, typically 70% for morphology. Then keen cool. [a specimen soaked in 70% ethanol can then be mailed shipped, provided there is only minimal free liquid - there are many shipping regulations]. If you want to preserve tissue for DNA remove a whole leg3 from either a dead or live spider and put that into absolute alcohol. Probably best to ask at a science dept. at local university or school. Acetone and isopopyl are bad for making specimens go brittle, i suggest avoid those in favour of ethanol where possible.

Acetone does rapidly dry indeed, which is an advantage for preservation since it immediately stops protease/nuclease activity.

You can reconstitute with ammonia. Not sure if that's normal for spiders though so I would ask as suggested. They do it with Leps I know for sure.

 

[MaximusMeridus]

Has the Chicken spider formerly been described and scientific name been established yet?

 

[BaddestRuffest]

Any updates ? Guessing your inundated with slings right now.

 

[AbraxasComplex]

Any updates ? Guessing your inundated with slings right now.

I wish. Kept the sac at about 76-78'F in an incubator. No development at all and after day 50 the eggs started to go bad. Not sure if they were fertilized or not. I still have one gravid female left and the other young female just molted, so I paired her up with my last male.

Any suggestions from anyone? This is the second sac from this female that has not developed. She was one of the solitary females found and I wonder if she is not fertile at all and just produces phantom sacs.

 

[Najakeeper]

I wish. Kept the sac at about 76-78'F in an incubator. No development at all and after day 50 the eggs started to go bad. Not sure if they were fertilized or not. I still have one gravid female left and the other young female just molted, so I paired her up with my last male.

Any suggestions from anyone? This is the second sac from this female that has not developed. She was one of the solitary females found and I wonder if she is not fertile at all and just produces phantom sacs.

It is very sad that you have yet to get a viable sac from these spiders after all this effort. I hope this coming sac(s) work(s) out for you. It would be a shame to run out of males with no production.

 

[MrCrackerpants]

Here is a new feeding video from Jon3800 with his massive chicken spider. The chicken spider shows up in the video at 22:48 and Jon says she is 10.5 to 11 inches in leg span. I thought I would share since...well, it's a massive chicken spider :biggrin:

http://youtu.be/KbDkEGvknYI

 

[Koh_]

any update

 

[Spyder 1.0]

Jon's female died. He'll be sending it for archival and DNA barcoding soon. Once more Phamphobeteus species are added to the reference library we will have a clearer idea if this is indeed a new species .

 

[josh_r]

Failure in successfully hatching out the sacs could come down to a few things.... Lack of ability to thermal regulate the sacs. Lack of proper air flow and humidity being too high. Could also be bad eggs due to lack of cycling the adults and the males may be producing inviable sperm or the females not producing viable eggs. One thing MOST people do not know about the Madre de Dios area is... It gets F*****G COLD HERE!!! Yes, it is tropical amazonian forest, but you do not find all tthe amazonian species here. MANY species do not range this far south. This is due to the frequent friaje storm fronts that move in from Bolivia and bring with them VERY VERY cold temperatures. Sometimes down into the 50s and rarely, lower. Many temperate herps need to be cycled to produce viable sperm.... Maybe these need a mini friaje to produce viable offspring. Also, they produce during the dry season. The dry season here very much lacks rain and lacks humidity. The soil gets bone dry between friajes. For instance, it hasn't rained in a week and it is not uncommon to have no rain for several weeks in a row and the humidity yesterday was 40%. This is very common during the dry season when they are incubating. Egg laying takes place at the end of the rainy season and the babies hatch in August. We are seeing an abundance of adult females with fresh offspring now (mid August) Should you have a chance to try these again, think about some of these things. It may have a determining factor in success vs failure.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Pamphos (chicken spider) are largest of there genus?? wonder what average, and largest size they get is.
Prob bigger than H Hercules was.

 

[multibit]

Excellent thread, I've just ordered a pair of juvenile Pamphobeteus sp arana polita's , I'll post a pic soon as they arrive. We also have a huge Pamphobeteus sp Antinous Iquitos big black so be interesting to see how the arana polita's differ once adult . Really loving Pamphobeteus

Our big black

 

[Sana]

It took me two days to read this entire thread (granted I have a four year old son and a demanding job) and I'm blown away by the amount of time and energy, not to mention money, that this project has taken. I'm interested in pamphobeteus in general and have yet to find one that I don't adore. I hope to hear more about these in the future and will be keeping my eyes open for more posts on this thread.