Latrodectus (Theridiidae) Picture Thread

[surena]

L. mactans mature Female

L. hesperus mature male

L. hesperus mature female

 

[buthus]

Surena interesting marking going on with that mactan (or is that more than one?). I'd be interested in purchasing a couple of southerns with markings like that... preferably a subadult female and one gravid female from different bloodlines.
Is the color correct? I have run into a few redish, chocolate colored westerns, but not for a while. My yard is full of westerns at the moment... probably a lot of in-breeding, but all are very dark and are healthy, with long life spans. A few have full (almost perfect hour glasses) but most have seperated or even half hours. Where do you get your westerns from? And are you an expert enough to tell the two species apart? I have traded for southerns before, but only assumed they were southerns based on the location of the seller.
If you are interested in some new western blood, I am always happy to trade.

BTW... I skimmed the forum rules ...and will go back and read again, but if I'm breaking any with talk of trade or sales, please inform me and forgive.

 

[P. Novak]

Alright i need help, i have 4 egg sacs, all of them hatched out. The babies are a creamish color with a white abdomens, i have around 1000 L.hesperus babies, what do i feed them, and all the basic stuff like housing and when do i seperate them?

 

[insect714]

Well deamonhunter, do you want that many? BEcause if you don't the easy way to thin out the numbers is to let them do it on their own. The slings will eat one another ( letting only the strong survive) That is what I do when I have a mass hatch like that. It lets you not have to worry about food and housing for a million spiders. If you do want to keep them then you will need to place them into small ( 2oz) deli cups with a lil piece of a stick individually and fed them on flightless fruitflies. Good Luck let us know if you need anymore help.

Jonathan Romero

 

[P. Novak]

Well i actually dont really want to keep them all, so ill just let nature take its course for a couple of days/weeks. Let the stronger ones live.

 

[David_F]

Female Latrodectus variolus

 

[buthus]

One of my western widows that I have been keeping.

Hard to keep a track of her while taking the pic. She came after me a couple of times once she figured out I wasn't food.
But, at first she thought she caught a feast.

You can see she is trying to wrap me up to snare me.

Then she turned around to investigate more closely. Hey, thats no cricket...thats the jerkoff that stuck me in this glass cage! She then came after me offensively and the next pic was off to the side and blury. Like I said.. hard to truely keep a track of her while focusing!

 

[Stylopidae]

You got stones, my friend. I will give you that.

 

[Venom]

Good job on the photography Buthus, but man..that was STUPID.

 

[Ian Snyder]

Care ?'s

Can you tell me more about the care of these beautiful creatures. This would be a big help


ian Snyder

 

[buthus]

Can you tell me more about the care of these beautiful creatures. This would be a big help


ian Snyder

Hesperus and from what I understand mactans and geometricus are very easy to keep. The first one I kept was already full grown and lived for over a year and a half in a sauce jar. I kept another from hatchling that lived for almost 26 months. Most of mine have lived for 8 to 18 months. I would suspect that genetics play the key role.
I like to keep my "showcase" girls in 9'" x 3" glass enclosures that I make. Tops are wood framed with thin plexy tops... plenty of air holes and a 1" feeding hole that I cover with tape (or when I'm not lazy I cut the plastic threads from a bottle and glue it to the plexy for a nice cap.) When I had a couple variolus I had a wood frame top and bottom with plastic screens for more ventilation because I was told that was needed for that specie. The northerns I had didnt live much past 7 or 8 months, so I have more research to do for the next attempt at keeping them.

Feeding is easy ...just walk outside at night and catch something tasty. Crickets, earwigs, moths, roaches, flys and even other spiders will be gladly excepted. Though, do take caution when feeding your widows Lyniphids, Steatoda Grossa and other spiders. If they make it through your widows web and are able to establish their own home base, they can kill the widow. I have watched this happen with a couple old girls of mine. I found it interesting to observe... you may not. Feeding them once a week seems to keep them plump and healthy, yet not to sluggish. I don't document much, so I don't have any evidence regarding over feeding and lifespan. They will feed 2 or more times a day if you allow them to. Hesperus slings will feed on each other, fruit flies, small crickets and will even gang up on larger prey. In the "wild", I often find young widows living directly over red ant highways feeding on the ants even as sub-adults. I have fed a few slings exclusivly an ant diet and they grew up plump and healthy.
Widows shouldn't require any additional H2O beyond what they get from their prey. Though, I have dropped water onto webs and have witnessed the spiders drinking.

Males only live for a few months max so if you are going to mate them, do so soon after you find one or soon after it reaches maturity. Adult males do not eat. They can be housed together with no aggression towards one another. With Hesperus and likely most other species, males usually live after mating as long as they are not weak and/or they have enough space within the enclosure to flee from the female. If kept in the enclosure with a hungry female too long, they will surely end up as food. I have mated 4 females with one male ...he was a true stud..at least up until the 4th female snared him after mating and made a meal out of him.

Anywho...I think they make great pets. They scare the hell out of most people and I find that a plus!
Just caught 2 in Page AZ... both found at the hotel I stayed at. Plumping them up ...the boyz are waiting! I gathered them in the dark and I didn't notice that the second one I found was missing three legs... one front and both back legs! This was a surprise when I opened her up when I got home. She can't feed on her own... because they need their hind legs to pull out webbing and wrap their prey. It's actually funny to see her bobbing her abdomen while going through the motions, but not getting anywhere. I've hand fed her twice already and she is looking healthy ...beautiful full hour glass. I am curious to see if she will be able to mate ...most likely an easy date for the male, but will fail when its time to make an eggsac.

 

[buthus]

The bachelor pad.

 

[buthus]

LOL... ok bad info!
First of all when I said that adult males do not eat ...I actually meant that they don't kill. They are commonly observed eating leftovers from a female. I have seen this and according to what I have read by Dr.Robert Breene III this is known to be common.
But, I eat my shoe regarding the males not hunting and being non agressive towards one another. I have kept males together for relatively short periods of time (1 week max) without cannibalism occuring. In my "bachelor pad" (photo above) I have kept 4 males now for over a couple of weeks. Tonight the largest male took out two of his housemates! And he is enjoying his meal.

Chewing mouthful of shoe. Sorry about the bad info. Interesting lesson learned.
This boy is going to be a true stud...I can feel it!

 

[buthus]

One of these dayz i am going to get a good 1:1 macro lens so I can take some worthy pics. But, until then, I'll have to settle with bad ones ...oh well.
Here's a female eating another female.

 

[David_F]

Latrodectus variolus with eggsac

The female L. variolus in my post above just constructed an eggsac on 3 July. Here she is touching up the sac right after finishing it.

 

[moricollins]

Latrodectus hesperus, 0.0.1 sub-adult:

 

[David_F]

Wild widows

Went out this past Saturday with KUJordan and found a few widows with eggsacs. One was even carrying an eggsac while her offspring hung out in a group below her. Thought I'd show some pics of these awesome spiders in their natural habitat. I'm not positive of the species...either mactans or variolus. The dorsal abdominal markings made me think it could have been either. We only got a good look at the ventral abdomen on one of the spiders found and it turned out she had almost no hourglass.

Female and spiderlings:

Closer pic of the group of spiderlings:

And the mother with her eggsac:

 

[buthus]

Mating the largest female hesperus I've ever seen with one of the largest males I have seen. Hopefully the results will be good. They could be bro and sis though. Inbreeding could just negate my hopeful goals.
Anyway...
He had all the right moves. :}

She got p!ssed a few times with his attempts to wrap her up a bit.

I have a lot of young adult females and I can get some males ...all westerns. If anyone here is interested in trade ...for southerns, browns, northerns..etc ...I am very interested. Just shoot me a PM!

 

[mackids]

Great pics! two questions:
1. Can I see a pic of the enclosure you're using it looks interesting
2. Its hard to judge scale in that picture it looks huge I was just curious if you could hold up a ruler or something for reference.

thanks

 

[buthus]

Great pics! two questions:
1. Can I see a pic of the enclosure you're using it looks interesting
2. Its hard to judge scale in that picture it looks huge I was just curious if you could hold up a ruler or something for reference.

thanks

Enclosure is just a glass box with a wooden framed top ...top is thin plexy. The plexy has gotten brittle over the years and when i attempted to enlarge the feeding hole, it just broke ...thus the funky hole above her. I use blue painters tape to cover the hole. There is infact a wooden ruler in this enclosure ...am hoping once she settles in and constructs more webbing, I'll get a decent size comparison shot. This girl is shy though and has not filled the enclosure with web like most do. I was worried that the male wouldnt have enough of her webbing to do his ritual (which usually includes disconnecting the outer parameters of the web) and have an easy time getting beyond her reach. But, looks like she was ready to mate, because he just moved right in within 5 minutes of his introduction. She only complained when he wrapped her up too much otherwise she was ready and willing.