L hesperus strange markings :) no pics tho :(

[Widowman10]

hey, since we're on the topic of "weird and strange markings on my black widow" i thought i would comment on something interesting i found. out of the thousands of hesperus i've had come and go, i found a gigantic female with only a very very very (i stress ) faint little red dot. no hourglass. no bright red. just a very small, dark red, dot. kinda cool looking and i thought i would share since i personally have never had a hesperus like this before. i know in other variations, such as the variolus, the hourglass can be separated, or only a dot, but i've never seen a hesperus like this one. don't think it's a variolus, cause i found it in nature . sorry i don't have any pics, don't have a camera to my name...:8o

 

[buthus]

hey, since we're on the topic of "weird and strange markings on my black widow" i thought i would comment on something interesting i found. out of the thousands of hesperus i've had come and go, i found a gigantic female with only a very very very (i stress ) faint little red dot. no hourglass. no bright red. just a very small, dark red, dot. kinda cool looking and i thought i would share since i personally have never had a hesperus like this before. i know in other variations, such as the variolus, the hourglass can be separated, or only a dot, but i've never seen a hesperus like this one. don't think it's a variolus, cause i found it in nature . sorry i don't have any pics, don't have a camera to my name...:8o

If she is gravid, Id be very interested in a decent percentage of her offspring ...or if not gravid, would you be interested in participating in a little breeding project?


Im currently starting to breed first gen females and males from this WC gravid individual...
BTW... Andrew if you're looking ...this is the sweet little goth chick you let me take home..

Ive raised a small batch of her young hoping for obvious signs of her special trait passing on. Over 80% (off the cuff est) have/had heavily split glasses. Almost 100% where split with only a couple non-splits. I wish I had time to have raised a larger sample because I believe there were probably at least a few just like mommy. I got one that is really close.

First a few of the more radical "splits"...

and here is pudding proof that her special trait can/will pass on...

All four sisters have been mated with siblings. Only one (O1x-1) has produced offpring and I only have a small number. Hopefully one will show that one gen of inbreeding can bring us back to mother.
...funny...just checked her and one of her new sacs must have hatched when I wasnt looking (unfortunately lots of not looking of late )

O1x-4 is the one that I am frustrated with ...though I'm only pretending to think that she will be more apt (over her sisters) to produce nil/reduced hourglass offspring. Genetics experts/enthusiasts please join in any time.
She is the lucky charm ...almost as cool as mom. AND damnit she did mate... no sacs!! ...tell me that this aint spider screwin'?!

Ive been power feeding a couple more sibling males (as much as one can powerfeed a widow male ) HOPING that she hasnt been rendered barren from her seemingly unsuccessful romp.

 

[KUJordan]

Very interesting! Buthus, as alwasy, incredible documentation. Widowman, you are in Colorado, so is the widow you are talking about from there as well? I have found many many hepserus in Colorado especially in the mountains around Denver/Boulder and they have all had interesting looking hourglasses. None of them, come to think of it, have had the nice clean cut hourglass that many hesperus are thought to have. Most of their glasses have been split into weird shapes, not like variolus, which seem to pretty much have two very similar triangles pulled apart. I also noticed that the posterior end of the hourglass is not anything like the ones of mactans which are very wide and heavily anvil shaped. I just think hesperus have the most variation in their hourglasses, as opposed to mactans and variolus, which seem to be pretty stable.

 

[Widowman10]

Very interesting! Buthus, as alwasy, incredible documentation. Widowman, you are in Colorado, so is the widow you are talking about from there as well? I have found many many hepserus in Colorado especially in the mountains around Denver/Boulder and they have all had interesting looking hourglasses. None of them, come to think of it, have had the nice clean cut hourglass that many hesperus are thought to have. Most of their glasses have been split into weird shapes, not like variolus, which seem to pretty much have two very similar triangles pulled apart. I also noticed that the posterior end of the hourglass is not anything like the ones of mactans which are very wide and heavily anvil shaped. I just think hesperus have the most variation in their hourglasses, as opposed to mactans and variolus, which seem to be pretty stable.

hmmm, found in CO, yes. that's interesting, because i was noticing most of the hesperus found in my area had a nearly perfect hourglass. most perfectly shaped out of all the other latros i've seen. that is why this one threw me for a loop. the northerns i know have more of the separated glass, and the southerns have the more anvil shape, but hesperus is a bit weird i guess.


buthus: what species have you got in the pic? is it of hesperus as well? and have you found a male with a very faint hourglass? i think that would be some pretty radical offspring. male and female w/out the red glass. i have no clue if she is gravid. i will feed heavily and keep you updated will pm shortly also and great pics once again:clap:

 

[buthus]

buthus: what species have you got in the pic? is it of hesperus as well? and have you found a male with a very faint hourglass? i think that would be some pretty radical offspring. male and female w/out the red glass. i have no clue if she is gravid. i will feed heavily and keep you updated will pm shortly also and great pics once again:clap:

The individuals pictured above are hesperus, The first one is the beginning of the line ...wild caught gravid. She was collected by Andrew (cacoseraph) just a bit south of LA proper.

Traits that appear in females may not appear in males the same way. Looking for a male with no hr glass would probably end up a wild goose chase and even if you found one, it doesnt mean that the trait will pass on the same way. In otherwords what makes a female not have an hr glass, may not necessarily cause the same condition in males and vice versa. To top it off, male latros can be very diverse when it comes to markings anyway. An individual could just be a fluke or phase and not necessarily on a genetic path towards a clear and stable morph. (though it could be ...if mated with the right individual and thats the tough part ) Of course this applies to females as well.
Disclaimer: most of my theories about genetics and breeding ...hell, any scientific banter and spider info for that matter actually comes directly from my arse. So please take the source of my info into account when drawing your own conclusions about this stuff.

The key (I believe) is to find an individual that produces a decent percentage of offspring that reflect the traits desired. In the case above, even though we dont know what the male looked like, she does produce some young with the desired trait ...more than lets say a female with just a normal split glass would. Inbreeding is the only sure way to continue to reinforce the trait ...probably that is. I have yet to see the results of the offspring pairings.
Having a second unrelated line with the desired trait COULD strengthen the health of the first line and may strengthen the desired trait.
I have had the opposite affect though. I had a couple lines that were HUGE hesperus with no markings and solid glasses ...blacker than the ace of spades ..."perfect" black widows so to speak. Breeding these lines produced a bunch of medium to small sized individuals and after a couple generations, really brown ones started to appear and even retained markings.

All the genetic code is there in every individual. What may be the more driving factor (over reinforced traits) is what genes get triggered when ..during early development. There is a lot of study going on regarding this with early development of humans and our ability to stop disease and other problems from appearing.

 

[Kryshah]

ok... so, I have some questions. What is the possibility that you're catch is a mactans? Do mactans ever show so little of a marking? I know that there area reports of mactans being found in that area, they are pretty wide spread over the us right? And Buthus your notation -O1x-1- what do you track with it, and what does it mean, is it offspring, like the genetics notation p, f1, f2 etc? Sorry If I'm an annoying ignoramus. I have to catch up to you Latro pros somehow.... and unfortunately there isn't much literature available on them.

You definately have some balls though Buthus.

 

[KUJordan]

ok... so, I have some questions. What is the possibility that you're catch is a mactans? Do mactans ever show so little of a marking? I know that there area reports of mactans being found in that area, they are pretty wide spread over the us right? And Buthus your notation -O1x-1- what do you track with it, and what does it mean, is it offspring, like the genetics notation p, f1, f2 etc? Sorry If I'm an annoying ignoramus. I have to catch up to you Latro pros somehow.... and unfortunately there isn't much literature available on them.

You definately have some balls though Buthus.

Here are my thoughts on L. mactans and its hourglass variability. None of us 'pros' are doing DNA work on them, so take everything we say with a grain of salt. I have a very solid line of "pure" mactans in my neck of the woods. I have NEVER caught one that has any significant variability in the shape of its hourglass. Every mactans I have caught has a very distinctive hourglass compared to the variolus and hesperus I've found. I have also been to many places that have both hesperus and mactans and I have found mactans with these exact same very distinctive hourglasses that are nothing like hesperus or variolus. In these areas of cohabitation between hesperus and mactans, I have found many widows that have the typical clean-cut hesperus hourglass and many with the hourglass that is well depicted in Buthus's post pictures 2,3, and 4. This is why I feel mactans hourglasses are very tell-tale and aything else is most likely due to the potential for hesperus to vary in their hourglass shape.

 

[buthus]

ok... so, I have some questions. What is the possibility that you're catch is a mactans?

None. This is a hesperus ..textbook..infact everything a very dry hot/cold desert dwelling hesperus would want to be.
In nicer climes... the forest..an hr glass and other markings are an advertisement for a potentially fatal belly ache but in some hot shthole of a place with some dirty oil can being the nearest water source, its just and advertisement.

Do mactans ever show so little of a marking? I know that there area reports of mactans being found in that area, they are pretty wide spread over the us right?

Mactans tend to retain much more intense markings and a very wide/bright glass most likely for reasons above.
Mactans have spread and have done very well around the world but I have yet to find one out here or out west for that matter. Nor have I not come across reports of mactans being collected in CA or surrounding states. Texas has a little of everything. Its an easy route from the north/south east and mid-west into Texas but its not so easy from Texas to the rest of the western US. The later route would require heroic leaps from doable niche to doable niche ...big leaps.
If you walked the docks in Long Beach or San Diego flashlight in hand every night, I suppose you'd eventually run across a non-native or two. If it were a widow, good chance it would be a mactans..or geo.. or redback. Certain species like hanging with sailors it seems.

your notation -O1x-1- what do you track with it, and what does it mean, is it offspring, like the genetics notation p, f1, f2 etc?

Line designation = semi-arbitrary name + line number. In this example, Omicron #1 is the line name given to an individual hesperus collected in/around LA and that has a distinguishing trait. How/when I use the name Omicron later doesnt matter as long as I continue the rule of thumb ...name + # = line NOT an individual. If I were to collect another hesp with no glass in SoCal area and if I plan to include it in my breeding lines I most likely will start a new line called O2. The individual is actually O2-1 and the line starter I shown above is actually O1-1. For file naming purposes I can get away with hsp_O1_infoinfo. If O2 started as a sac someone sent me or I collected then the sacs individual name would be O2-0. This just tells me that the line O2 (while in my possession) started as a sac. The line name of the slings that hatch from that sac is O2x. (x = unknown) Likewise, my girl O1-1 (individual that started line O1) was WCG. The male end of the deal is unknown..a cousin, a sibling or one of the wandering boyz of summer ..we dont know. But I care enough to want to remember that individuals produced from that unknown pairing were infact just that...offspring from a WCG. I usually name an individual when they reach sub-adulthood, and/or when transfered, and/or when I think that individual may be a future factor in the line(s). O1-1 mated with "x". The first offspring to be named became O1x-1.
With small time selective breeding... for me this has worked out ...actually evolved and is still being worked on. For large multi-generational/multi-sibling breeding projects it would have to be focused a bit differently.
Overall, some note taking is required.

 

[Kryshah]

wow, thanks guys! Buthus, have you ever taken, or thought about taking a genetics class? It may be very helpful to you for your breeding projects.