Brachypelma smithi

[oogieboogie]

Female is very willing to breed. At first it looked like she wanted to kill the male, but upon closer inspection she was trying to position herself! Male is placed in with female once a week. The two have bred more than 5 times. The male has been eating very little and constantly building sperm webs. First mating was almost 2 months ago.

Still waiting on that eggsac. Female was almost half way through her molt cycle, so she may absorb it.

Amy

 

[oogieboogie]

Pics

Here is a picture!

Enjoy!

 

[ChrisNCT]

Brachypelma smithi Breeding 10-17-2005

Hello.

I would like to introduce a pair of really fun to breed Brachypelma smithi !

With timing & conditions just right I went ahead with pairing these guys up today.

Conditions
Temperature: 80 Degrees F
Humidity:69%
Lighting Conditions: Dimmed

Male Brachypelma smithi Info: 5 1/2" Matured Male from owner Erin Milam.
Female Brachypelma smithi Info: 5 1/2" Female molted on 05-03-2005.

Male was placed into the females enclosure using the cupping method and settled down on the substrate for several minutes. Moved around a bit then approached the female on the other side of the enclosure.

The female instantly picked up on the males scent and did some short drumming. He initiated the mating by some drumming very shortly while "twitching". The female walked down towards him from atop of her pot and put her front legs on his resting there for a bit.

He then dummed a bit more and lifted her front legs and pedipalps. No fangs were bared so I didn't interfere. He gently tounched her front 2 set of legs slowly lifting her and walked her backwards slightly just enough to pull her abdomen closer to him. While doing this he used his pedipalps to drum rapidly on her belly while lifting her up and arching her backwards.

He made 5 insertions and started lowering her down. Once that happend, she tried to strike at him but was too far away. I intervened quickly and took him out placing him back into his enclosure for future breeding attempts.

Here are a small series of pics showing what happend.

Enjoy!

**************UPDATE*******************
11-27-2005
Female has been bred again successfully with the same male. She may be gravid but at this time I can't tell to much.

 

[JDS]

B.smithi eggsac 1/19/06 successful so far

I have my first eggsac! The picture below was from this morning. I'll add an eggsac picture later. I don't want to annoy her too much with camera flashes.

I have been mating two females with two males. The two males were purchased together as same sized juvenales, but they had gotten out of sync in their molting 3 molts ago with one skipping a year. Next the other one skipped a year and they where back in sync (1.5 weeks apart). Then on their last molting one matured and then the other 2 months later. I was hoping they would leave me a year in between but no such luck.

The female, now with the eggsac, was mated first and repeatedly mated with both males. It was about 2.5 months from their first mating. I moved the females each to their own 10 gallon enclosures but had the temperature a cool 70F at first. I would then introduce the males to the females. Early on the first male just wanted to get out of there, I believe he may not have yet started making sperm webs. At first I wasn't sure about identifying remains of sperm webs. Later I caught the males with sperm webs and found them much more willing to mate in following days. I also ended up raising the temperature for the females and males to 75-80F. This really helped increase their activity level and the mating. I also increased the humidity level substantially (>50%) versus the normally dry conditions in winter.

Between the two males this female had probably 8 matings. Both males and females got quite good at engaging though it was difficult to see if insertions went well. I found it helped getting the water dish out of the enclosure so they would not be climbing over or in it. I also dampened the substrate to try to keep the males from slipping so much while trying to control the much larger female. I only use a half inch of peat/vermiculite which when dry slides around easily. Next time I might put down some other material over the glass to provide better traction.

When the webbing started I thought she was getting ready to molt because she had started developing the telltale bald spot, even an apparent dark spot, see picture, along with refusing her last meal. The webbing continued for 5 or more days before the roll up time.

Conditions
Temperature: 74-78 Degrees F
Humidity:60-70% (per T-rex gauge)
Lighting Conditions: low indirect



Two possible fathers, and shark cage used


2.5 weeks later female is building a web barracade


4 weeks later female started eating the eggsac. I removed and counted 500 eggs plus another ~100 clumped together from mother consumption. Each pile in the picture is 25 eggs. The best 25 eggs are in the coffee filter.

 

[Hedorah99]

Attempt #1 9-192006

Alright. My first breeding attempt. Heres the stats:

Time 8:00pm

Temp: 77 degrees

Humdity: Low

At 8 I introduced the pair. He began drumming immediatly. He drummed a few times and began moving out of the tank. Stubborn as I am I moved him back in. He began drumming again and moved towards her and then over her on a silk plant. I removed the plant and tried a third time. This time they met in the center. He was tapping away and she was receptive. By 8:09 it looked like it was going well when he just ran away. I took this as a hint and will try again in a day or so. At least she didn't try and kill him outright.

Here's some pics.

 

[Hedorah99]

Attempt 2 9-25-2006

Time 9:00 PM

Temp. 75 degrees

Humdity low

Lighting Dimmed

Success. Immediatly upon entering the tank the female ran at the male. He grabbed her and began drumming on her legs. She lifted up and he had several insertions. They seperated and she tried ot kill him. I dropped a deli cup on her just in time. The male is alive and ready for more loving.

 

[Hedorah99]

2-5-2007 Got a sac

After being webbed up for about two weeks now she is sitting on a nice sac. It looks kinda small but she is a big girl. Will pull in 30 days and see whats up inside.

 

[MudCrabDude]

Failed attempt.

•Successful? – No. Female molted.

•Any special care or preliminary notes for the lovers – Here are some notes I made:

Female molted about May-June 2009

12-09-2009: Tarantula Male arrives. Supposedly have freshly molted a week earlier.

Note: in between time, stridulation occurs between adjacent tanks, with male initiating thumps and female responding

12-20-2009: Male starts beginning sperm web. Cleared ground with web. Never ate. Might have drank.

12-23-2009: Male lying flush on ground all day. Near web beginning mass?

•How they were paired – Put male into female’s normal home. Tanks of both male and female were adjacent to each other.

•Any observations on the hookup – here are my notes:

12-24-2009: Male introduced. Mating attempted but no insertion. Will try again.

12-30-2009: Apparent mating success. Female seemed more aggressive after insertion for about 5 minutes. Seemed to attack male. But I got them separated quickly.

12-30-2009: Fed with crickets. Both ate.

12-31-2009: Mate attempt fail. Male not conducive as before.

Note: b/t after successful pairing - no more stridulation occurred, unlike prior to success pairing.

•Any special post mating care and The final details – the last notes:

1-1-2010: Mate attempt fail. Female moved to outdoors for cooling process.

1-3-2010: Male making more sperm webbing and refilling of pedipalp bulbs. Makes lots of thumping w/o female’s tank adjacent.

1-4-2010: Male introduced to female one more time. No attempt to mate made. Assumed previous insertion successful.

1-23-2010: Temps low at 50 F in outdoor storage.

2-11-2010: Looks gravid. Round Opistoma - after not being fed since 12-2009. Looking a little bigger? Accidentally falls into water dish - wets the opisthoma a little, I hope, when tank gets nudged for closer look.

3-15-2010: Temps now high at about 80 F outdoors. Moved back indoors for mid 70s temps (constant). Does not take feeder crickets. Still fat looking, but not "gravid fat"-looking.

3-17-2010: Small (weird) white worm-like things in water dish??? Dish replaced with another.

3-19-2010: T spends more time in hiding. Beginning the intensive misting/"simulated spring rains". Defensive behavior display.

3-21-2010: T makes some long loose strands of webbing outside of her hidey. Never seen this type of webbing before. This webbing is different from the "molt web" mats. Hope it is not sign of premolt....

4-17-2010: Eats a cricket. Lemme see if she eats more...

4-25-2010: Another attempt of feeding (15 large crickets); eagerly hunting out crix - stopped aforementioned curtain webbing. Tank seems curtain free for now.

4-26-2010: All crickets dead, none found alive. Abdomen slightly more swollen. Some poop found in hidey area. Never had fed this many crickets at one time before.

4-29-2010: No webs. But tarantula showing signs of eagerness to eat when prodded. Usually when abdomen this swollen she is not hungry - sign of gravidity?

5-19-2010: Voraciously eating dozen crickets. Belly swollen, bigger than in intermolts past. Still seems to be hungry and attacks any slight movement around her.

5-22-2010: Given another dozen crix to eat. So far accepting them.

5-23-2010: Handled (out on photoshoot outdoors for a class project). She looked pretty gravid. Hopefully the little handling didn't give her too much discomfort. Found 3 crickets still living - hopefully she'll eat them.

5-24-2010: Tank was misted.

6-1-2010: Fed a group of 14 crickets. Only seen taking one and avoiding the others.

6-23-2010: Bald patch on abdomen getting dark. Staying in hidey.

7-03-2010: Dust-looking-things around tank on outside of hidey. Looks like clumps of urticating hairs.

7-07-2010: Found with an exoskeleton - probably initiated molt a day or so earlier.