6 years old hatched out in jan 2000. Still 2nd instar size half inch or so.Mainly nothing but vitamin water a pinhead every 4 months or so or 6 when i remember her.Last time her little cup had dust on it.I shall continue to keep her at this size as long as i can just to see.
What i want to see is if sexual maturity is reached,i believe i can keep her at this size forever or at least her lifespan whatever that might be.Her sister which i sold here in town is 4.5" or so in size.While she remains half inch.
So this isn't a joke then? More like an ongoing experiment to see just how slow a rosie can grow?
I'm amazed that it's still alive with it being that tiny for that long.
Hom many times has it molted, just a few times over the years or did it do a bunch of tiny molts with minimal or no size gain?
That's amazing! I thought a spider couldn't live that long with so few molts to repair/regenerate itself. Looks like you have totally proven that you cannot judge a T's age by it's size alone!
You said you wanted to see it reaches sexual maturity, do you have others that you have kept that small? I wonder what would happen if you has a tiny mature male and tiny mature female, would they mate, would the female make a sac at all , if she did, would it have like only a few eggs in it?
I wonder if anyone else has done such experiments?
Its a experiment in progress i'll see where it takes me as i go,there were 15 but i forgot about them for a great while sitting on a back shelf boxes got put in front of them and i was so busy with work new baby etc.so only she survived.
Just imagine someday it will probably molt. Then you will wait another 3-5 years and then it will molt. This process will continue, you will pass it on to your children. etc...... then finally after 100 years it will molt...... into an ultimate male! Well its possible isn't it . Just incredible. Just think when it finally reaches 5 inches it could be already 30 years old by that time, and have the body of a 10 year old rosie . Thats only if the insides hold out to. But seeing has how small that rosie is you think by the time it gets to 6 inches all that extra mass will be new anyways unlike an aging human who already has all of their mass. Someone should try this with a B. smithi. "The spider who lived to be 1000 years old!". Very cool if it could happen.
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