L. geometricus hatch diary

[Glen Southern]

I was lucky enough to come home last night just as a hole was appearing in an L. geometricus sac. I recorded the process for an hour or so the best I could with a camera and a pen. I'm very new to keeping/studying Theridiidae so its all facinating to me right now.

Latrodectus geometricus
Egg Sac opening. Sunday 29th October 2006

21.15 Hole spotted in Egg sac. Approximately 2mm
21.25 Container made ready for photography. Heat lamp used to bring temperature higher.
21.30 Room temperature approx: 70 degrees. Raised heat around Egg sac using lighting from Binocular microscope. Container misted with a very fine spray of room temp. water.
21.32 First Sling leg seen protruding from the hole
21.43 No further activity.
21.44 Temp. raised to 78 degrees around the sac to stimulate Slings. Activity seen inside the sac using scope.
21.45 Sling legs seen protruding.
21.48 Hole widened with scalpel and tweezers to 3mm
21.50 Lots of activity inside but no sign of exit.
21.52 Hole widened slightly more. Now 4mm across.
21.53 First sling exits Egg sac.
21.55 5 Slings out. Slings keep moving away from the sac (20mm) and attaching silk then back to the Hole area.
21.57 11 Slings out. No sling goes further than the farthest point that the first Sling went. No attempt to disperse. No cannibalism in evidence.
22.00 Egg sac local temp 80 degrees.
22.01 18 slings out
22.02 22 Slings out
22.04 26 Slings out. Very active outside and inside the sac. Exit is speeding up. Continuous stream of Slings leaving the sac.
22.06 38 Slings out.
22.10 48 Slings out
10.12 Added 2 loops of wire over the central pot to increase surface area. Sling immediately used these spread a little further from the sac. Up to 30mm for the furthers Slings. No slings attempts to drop of the central pot or explore down at all.
22.13 55 Slings out
22.14 60 Slings out
22.15 64 Slings out. Flow of Slings slowing now. Each Sling leaving the sac seems to sac the sac rocking very slightly indicating little mass left inside the sac.
22.16 70 Slings out
22.19 75 Slings out
22.20 78 Slings out
22.24 87 Slings out
22.25 88 Slings out
22.30 Zero activity from the exit hole. All Slings appear to be out. All Slings are huddled within 40mm of the sac and all are above the level of the sac. No Slings have ventured downwards at all. No sign of cannibalism. The entire group are sitting very still in a cluster hanging over the initial sac site.
22.31 Egg sac pot sealed with netting and secure lid and replaced in Spider enclosure maintained at 80 degrees constant.

Total time from first Sling to last Sling was 35 minutes.

 

[Splintercell]

images and info

Hi Glen,

Superb timing mate.
And again, the quality we are getting used to. Superb :clap:

Well, good luck with the little once.
The need to be fed all 2 hours with milk
and need a good night song ;-)

Keep the pics comming Glen

Greetz, Tom.

 

[buthus]

Dont be afraid to open the sac to check for stragglers.

Small hatching, but they look fairly large compared to my geo hatchlings.

 

[KUJordan]

Dont be afraid to open the sac to check for stragglers.

Small hatching, but they look fairly large compared to my geo hatchlings.

man i was just thinking the same thing! those look huge compared to mine!

great pics Glen, as usual.

 

[Glen Southern]

They are HUGE! As I've mentioned I am new to Latros but experienced with lots of other true spiders. I was amazed at the size and agility of these babies. I had three hatchings in a few days, 2x L.hesperus, 1x L.geometricus and there is just no comparison. Some of the geo slings are three times the size of the avarage hesperus sling.

With these tw species when would I expect to see large amounts of canabalism? There seems to have been very little so far but then I haven't counted again since hatching. I wanted to get them down to about 20 per sac or I will be over run soon.

I'm running out of room as a very kind man from these boards sent me an adult S. grossa that is an egg sac machine and she is gonna fill my Spider cupboard with eggs I think!! .....lol

 

[KUJordan]

you'll see cannibalism pick up quickly when the slings molt there first time out of the sac, so when they're 2 instar (usually about a week out of the sac). This is generally when they start to feed on their own and they're usually very hungry and thirsty after this first molt. You'll start noticing little suspended balls of slings that have been collected and eaten by one or more of their siblings. The numbers will drop very very quickly, so be ready...