Does anyone know what these are???

[demolitionlover]

Mostly all of my L mactans slings have these wierd pockets of water in front of their heads. Im puzzled. Anyone have any idea what this could be???

 

[ScorpDemon]

how long since they hatched?

 

[demolitionlover]

They are 8 1/2 weeks old.

 

[ScorpDemon]

im not sure.. i was thinking possibly some sort of water reserve.. kind of like mother natures own version of an automatic waterer.. but surely if that was the case at that age they would have molted them off by now.. my friend just started breeding mactans again.. we have some.. a little over 2 week old slings and a second hatching that just dropped the eggs a couple days ago and a third sac that should be eggs with legs in a day or 2, and another sac just laid this weekend
anyway ill look and see if i can find anything.. if you find out what they are, let me know.. this has my interest

 

[Christoph]

Hello,

Anyone have any idea what this could be???

They are males ;-)

 

[demolitionlover]

Thank you for your replies.

Yeah I will def let ya know Scorpdemon if I find out.

Spidereye... the pockets mean they are males??

 

[Scorpendra]

if spidereye is right, they aren't water pockets; they're the spider equivalent of testicles.

 

[ScorpDemon]

i had another thought too.. could be something like.. and this is a longshot.. i dont know much about them, except i have tons of them around my house.. but possibly the formation of venom glands?

 

[Jesse607]

i had another thought too.. could be something like.. and this is a longshot.. i dont know much about them, except i have tons of them around my house.. but possibly the formation of venom glands?

The venom glands are internal. They look like adult males to me, and the "water droplets" are the bulbs at the end of the pedipalps where sperm is stored. Adult males are much smaller and normally become adult faster(less molts) than the females.

 

[NRF]

The spider is a subadult male with swollen tarsi of the pedipalps. An ad. male´s tarsi are modified into complex structures, not just swollen and looking like "water pockets". They are no testis in any way. They are only secondary copulatory organs (males have no primary) which he charges with sperm before copulation. Males usually spin a small sperm web onto wich they put a drop of sperm and then pick it up with the pedipalps.
But subad. after 8 1/2 weeks? Does Latrodectus really grow that fast?

 

[spydrhunter1]

I'm also rearing L. mactans and these are definitely males. These are the palps used for mating.

 

[ScorpDemon]

ive read on several sites that they can reach maturity in 30-90 days.. 8 1/2 weeks falls into that category

 

[Malhavoc's]

Their males. I've noticed alot of them get their mature palps long before their maturing molt. most can be sexed at about a 1cm-2cm leg span

 

[death1]

I've got L. geometricus and I've never seen that with them! Hmmmmm. :?

 

[demolitionlover]

Wow ok. But now I am even more confused. I thought only females get the hourglass.?.

Thank you for the info everyone : )

 

[Elizabeth]

From what I've seen, the males get a version of the hourglass, too.

 

[danny7499]

Can someone tell me more about these spiders. I recently caught on and have never seen them before(live in CA). It does have a brown hour glass and brown stripes on top.


Nevermind...just read some info on google....So basically, its a regular widow with different colors?

 

[misfitsfiend]

Deffinately an adult male! I´ve had a few, They look exactly like that.

 

[NRF]

Deffinately an adult male! I´ve had a few, They look exactly like that.

It´s not adult yet. See my previous comment...

 

[Malhavoc's]

Widows can get their mturing sexual organs prior to adult hood [handy for sexing immatures] All juvie's have different colourings then the adults [and can be very unique to region/individual] all widows gain the hourglass [I think] and most males I've encountered [hesperus and mactans] posses the hourglass as males but its usualy yellow