Female tarantulas drumming?

dopamine

Arachnobaron
Joined
Feb 7, 2010
Messages
341
So I'm laying in bed with the lights off and hear a very distinct tapping noise. Actually freaked me out at first. I shine a light at my closest Ts, my two adult Haplos, and notice they're both out of their burrows easily within "eyeshot" of each other. I'm assuming it's them because I've not noticed this happen until I brought home the second one. Could this be a territorial thing?
I was always under the impression that only males did this when reaching maturity. Is this exclusive to the genus?
 

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
Staff member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
3,292
Females absolutely do drum. I've never seen a male drum before maturity, though, only after the ultimate molt. I've got several females from a few genera that tap every night because of how many mature males I have right now.
 

awiec

Arachnoprince
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
1,325
My adult female T.gigas taps occasionally, have seen my female P.metallica do some heavy drumming as well.
 

KezyGLA

Arachnoking
Joined
Apr 8, 2016
Messages
3,013
I can hear some of my African ladies drumming from the other side of my apartment sometimes. Especially my sanderi :rofl:
 

darkness975

Latrodectus
Arachnosupporter +
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
5,610
Did you expect anything less? It's not a P. adele :p
A fellow Metallica fan eh? Excellant! :)

@dopamine The first time I heard a female drum it also surprised me, mostly because of how loud (comparatively) it was.
I have not had any mature males for a while now though and I have not heard any of my females drumming for some time.

Sometimes they do it by themselves even without a MM nearby. I am waiting for the day I wake up at 3 in the morning and think someone is knocking on my bedroom door haha.
 

dopamine

Arachnobaron
Joined
Feb 7, 2010
Messages
341
Yeah it really freaked me out for a second. I was watching a scary movie to top it off and hear what sounded like tapping on my wall :mask:
 

cold blood

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,223
This fall I moved 3 MM pokies onto a table with 6 adult females. For weeks the drumming was insane...almost constant. Since they have all been paired I haven't heard a tap.

So pair up those tappers already!!:astonished::astonished:
 
Top