castaneiceps and heros mated, for reals!

Galapoheros

ArachnoGod
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I got tired of being lazy so I went and bought a better container today for trying to mate these things, a round hat box from The Container Store. This time I put a male S. h. castaneiceps color form in with a female S. h. heros. She tapped on his terminals for an hour. Finally, he started moving and spun a tunnel. She went through, picked up the spermataphore and soaked it up! If babies show up, wonder what they will look like, anybody know? I'm guessing dark orange or brown. I found the female S. h. heros when it was a baby so I'm confident this is it's first mating. Have to wait and see now.



 

Canth

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She's a pretty female. Has a brown'ish tint to her. I can't wait to see what the babies look like. Good luck :)

How do you sex them?
 

Galapoheros

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I basically look at behavior when they come in contact with each other to determine sex. I make sure they have places to hide when I try this. I wait until the are calm and underneath something so they don't look like they are in a frightened "flight" mode before I decide which sex they are based on behavior. From what I've seen, if a female wanting to mate comes across another female, one female may be in a position to turn around real fast and expose it's terminals. It's usually the one that is still and resting under something that is the one that exposes it's terminals. The other female will tap on the terminals for a short time, and then turn around, sometimes fast and cautiously when it realizes it's not a male. If a female comes across a male, the male will usually turn around fast and expose it's terminals too. The female will start tapping the males terminals. The pede will start shaking and vibrating it's terminals if it's a male. The female will stay there and keep doing that if it wants to mate. This particular female did that for an hour before the male started walking. I've seen gravid females come across a pede under a rock, turn around and put it's terminals under the rock but that looks like more of a territorial thing to me. They seem to back up and try to push each other out. If a female is gravid, I don't think you'll see sexual behavior and as far and sexual dimorphism, good luck! I try to make guesses on leg length and a couple of other things but it's so sketchy, I don't pay a lot of attention to it.
 
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szappan

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... or maybe you should be writing a paper for a Scientific America! Seriously!

:clap:

:worship:
 

Mr. Mordax

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That's crazy-awesome, man! I hope it's fruitful!

I think szappan had the emotes right for this one.
 

Steven

pede-a-holic
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We need more experiments as these !
thumbs up Galapoheros,
good job ! :clap:
 

nissan480

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Thats freakin cool,cant wait to see what the pedelings look like.


Im in the process of aquireing some arizonensis for breadin.Should have some soon since the monsoon season is here.Once i get them,and have made sure there belly's are full,i will start introducing them.

Thanks for sharin,this is by far the coolest thing ive seen.
 
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Canth

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Just curious, are you also going to try this experiment with S. heros cf "arizonensis?"
 

Galapoheros

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I would. I've never had an S. h. arizonensis. I'm kind of hard-headed about trying to catch the stuff I house and arizonensis it pretty far away. But I have a few store bought things. I would like to have a S. h. arizonensis or a few and see if I can mix them up a bit. I know who to talk to, I just haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe someone else has tried it or will give it a shot and see what happens. That'd be pretty interesting. I would have already tried it, I just don't have any. From what I've been told, all the different heros color forms are able to mate with each other and produce viable young (Dr. Rowland Shelley).
 

Canth

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A friend of mine caught 4 S. h. cf "arizonensis" for me. He said there's tons in Tuscon but he only catches the biggest ones. I'm interested in breeding with the S. h. cf "heros" and S. h. cf "castaniceps". I just need to get adults of each ones and sex em.

Chesire would be one to conduct this experiment. He has an "arizonensis" I sold him last year.
 

Stylopidae

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Right now, I'm trying to acquire S. heros ssp for breeding experiments.

Hopefully, the centipede hobby will be at the same place the tarantula hobby is eventually.

My s. h. castaniceps specimens are far too small for any breeding attempts.

My 'male' (I think) measures somewhere between 7.5 and 8 inches currently.
 

Galapoheros

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You know, my biggest ones are males. I initially thought they were females. When a big female went through the web tunnel a smaller male made, ..tearing it down a little, it made me think about some things. How much will the web tunnel stretch? big males more successful by making bigger tunnels that don't get torn down by females? Is there some sizing up of the female somehow by the male to make a bigger tunnel? or is there really nothing going on there considering those questions? Who knows? Most people would say, who cares! ....kind of interesting though.
 

cacoseraph

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hey gala, i imagine ifyou made a thread like this on ATS forum then R. Shelley might reply.

pretty much every time he replies i learn something... it is awesome.


awesome work, btw.
 

mindlessvw

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i am debating on trying this with a few i just recently got in...maybe my keys guys...not sure but let me know how yours goes!
 

Galapoheros

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OK, I'll check it out. I've never even been to that site before. Seems like he'd check out this site every once in a while but maybe he's stays in one spot like I do.
 

Galapoheros

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I put a female S. h. castaneiceps and a male S. h. heros together and immediately watched things happen again. So now it looks like we've got a female S. h. heros with an S. h. castaneiceps spermataphore and a female S. h. castaneiceps with an S. h. heros spermataphore. Hope something interesting happens. In one of the pics, you can see the female pic up the spermataphore that was set suspended in webbing by the male using her last body segment.



 

bistrobob85

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Great stuff Galapo... It really rocks to see you experimenting with those different pairs... I really wish i had been in the hobby for longer, so i would have more sexed adults... How did you sex the males?!?! Females are pretty obvious once they have eggs but males...

If you end up with the ''Banded form'' of ''sc.h.a'', please keep me a few if you get a good survival rate :). Congratulations on your work.

phil.
 
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