Laos ...successful mating?

buthus

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
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1,381
Well, somehow I managed to mate 13 or 14 for sure adult females and attempted a few questionables and I was not able to take the time to setup a good photo shoot for any of them. I havent had the time and i was forced to send ALL my males through the meat grinder because they were dying left and right. BTW...in the end most of the males that were either introduced once or placed in with another female for a second or third go became quick snacks. A couple were able to hang around until they expired naturally ...and I believe I have 3 or 4 still hanging on. One died from drowning ...got sucked into a puddle of condensation. All the rest of my males died (probablly around 10 or so) while still in their sling cups.
Its not easy doing this with one sac. I had to make a lot guesses when it comes to who to powerfeed and who gets held back. Getting a group of females to pass up their male siblings is not only guess work, but truely a fight against the natural order of things. There is an obvious reason that males tend to mature at a faster rate ...its to get their butts out into the world to find and mate with new blood. Nature does seem to allow for some possible inbreeding within each brood ...early bloomer fems and late bloomer males most likely often meet up with eachother, but as a whole, IMO most inbreeding that happens in nature occures between siblings from different sacs and probably doesnt happen as much in well populated areas.

So...did I successfully mate at least a few of these females? I do believe so ...some even mated with two or three males... something that my local hesps never seem to want to do. But, so far...no sac action! :rolleyes:
Today. I allowed my room to get down to 65F and then i let it slowly rise to around 73F. I will crank the heat back up before sunrise, when I crawl back into my coffin for my morning nap.
I'll be surprised and surely bummed if I end up with nil sacs and I'll have to reevaluate what I think I know about these things.

Anyway...
Some pics of three of the pairings that i at least snapped some shots off of.

Ok, the fem I call Stubs. She was the only one that I at least placed into an enclosure for some decent shots ...but I was too lazy to change the background and I just left the white one I had setup for another subject. Great example of potentially decent pics washed out because of troublesome metering...
1st some solo shots ...feeding and preping the day before.





She is full of dust in these because she was in an open-faced enclosure ...and she decided to explore my room for most of the day. Mostly webbed up a 4 to 6' area between the enclosure, my camera/tripod and other enclosures nearby. Tempts me to try and let one just wonder the room ...to see where she will decide to settle in ...may be an interesting experiment.




The male... he was the least colorfull and i have to admit he was the dog of the bunch when it comes to markings...but he was the largest by far.





Intro was rough at first. Look how close she came to snagging this slippery stud!




He, out of all of them did the most web manipulation. He build a nice bridge between his little home base and her. (communications pipeline? eh? ;) ) And he eventually webbed up a "wall" that was attached to that. A couple of the pics show it somewhat ok.
















Wish I was paying attention when the kill happened. Could have been some interesting pics. Anyway ...as you can see, the murderous b*tch took her man to the cleaners. :D





Ok...some very poor shots of another pairing. The key to shooting through jars is to shoot from further back. Webbing and other crap will become more in focus and cause problems, but the subject matter will also come out much more in focus, along with less distortion from the glass and will have a better depth of field. Well, anyway...obviously, I need to start following my own advice, because with these I was way too close. :?












And most of these are a repost ...but with a few added...
























 

buthus

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
1,381
Ok ...finally some sacs! But, from two that I had least expected to get sacs from ...at least this soon. One female was one of the ones that I was unsure whether she was an adult...but I still paired some of them with males. (it has been a do or die. Literally... when it comes to my thinning male population). The other was the only one that somehow slipt thru the cracks and I found her still in her juv cup ...just stuck a male in with her ...he couldnt miss in there. ...like going to a party and meeting up with a hot chick in the broom closet. :wub:

BTW...this was a day after cooling my room down to 65F for about 4 or 5 hours and then an 8 hour slow warm up back to 79-80. These were in the colder end of my room also. NOT to jump to any conclusions whatsoever. (just info ...to measure against a possible pattern down the road ;) )
These were first introduced to male(s) (when one died...another was dropped in) about a week ago!

Keep checking all the other mated girls..hoping to catch one in the act of making a sac...but so far, only these two sacs.










One of these sacs is going to someone else to raise ...insurance via diversity ;)

...and the next couple are going to be released ..in/around KUJordan's area ...just to freak his mind next summer when out looking for variolus. ;) ...:p :D
 

KUJordan

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
344
...and the next couple are going to be released ..in/around KUJordan's area ...just to freak his mind next summer when out looking for variolus. ;) ...:p :D
Ha! Bring it on! They'd probably outcompete the variolus in a month! Their (laos) breeding seems to have much plasticity compared to variolus.

It really is crazy though, seeing as in some spots that Matt and I have out here there are probably as many variolus per acre as there are hesperus in certain parts of the west. A book published by Henry Fitch in ~1980 or so extimated over 100 variolus/acre at this certain locale!
 

buthus

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
1,381
Ha! Bring it on! They'd probably outcompete the variolus in a month! Their (laos) breeding seems to have much plasticity compared to variolus.
Yeah..sure, they would probably flourish and dominate during the summer, but when those temps start to drop down into the 50s, the variolus would start their gluttenous, cannibalistic feast ...nothing easier and as tasty as a slowed down sack of rainforest meat. :drool: :D
 

RVS

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
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Aug 11, 2005
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442
Congrats...
I just got a sac from this species as well! {D
 
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