Baby Boy Spiders?!?!

[8+)]

I was feeding my Loas sp. widows and noticed palps on some. The thing is they were only 3rd instar! I set them aside and they have since molted and indeed they are males.

I heard that these are strange Latros, but this really surprised me. I don't have enough experience to know how unusual this is, but I thought that my L. bishopi were much further along before I knew. Now in hindsight, it seems like I might have seen palps on them earlier, but dismissed it as impossible. :?

 

[buthus]

I was feeding my Loas sp. widows and noticed palps on some. The thing is they were only 3rd instar! I set them aside and they have since molted and indeed they are males.

I heard that these are strange Latros, but this really surprised me. I don't have enough experience to know how unusual this is, but I thought that my L. bishopi were much further along before I knew. Now in hindsight, it seems like I might have seen palps on them earlier, but dismissed it as impossible. :?

3rd or 4th instar is when most males start to show for latros anyway. Im sure there are many factors ...food, temp, humidity...who knows.

 

[8+)]

OK I'm a noob! They may have been 2nd instar though, they are so tiny! I don't know how people keep up with what instar they have anyway, when they're kept together for a while. I used to think that you couldn't tell until the last couple of molts...

I guess this gives me a head start on slowing them down, or at least more of one than I thought I'd get...

 

[buthus]

OK I'm a noob!

You too eh?
I'm just happy I was somehow able to keep this line going with only one sac to start with. Especially with our DRY environment. I babied those males!
Recently I had one sac produce something like 80% males ..it was and early sac and there was no way to utilize the studs... and after our recent heatspell I lost around 30 at about the same time. Cup after cup...dead mature male.
I'm going to try this specie out ...for a community male enclosure. Ive only attempted this with hesps before but hungry hesp males go nutz and hunt the males down...even after maturity. Laos and a few other species I keep have proven to be far less cannibalistic...both females and males. The key would be to allow your most active female web the hell out of an enclosure or jar for a week or so, then remove her and release the males into her webbing. The weak ones will die early or get killed by siblings and thats what we want ...only the strongest and longest living.

Plenty air exchange w/60-70% humidity ...tough combo, but that seems to be the winning environment for these.