Latrodectus tredecimguttatus

[mandipants]

I'm getting some of these mediterranian sweeties soon

Thanks in advance Widowman! I can't wait!

 

[Richard McJimsey]

Nice, I love tredecimguttatus!
I'm also expecting a nice package from WidowMan

 

[Widowman10]

hopefully y'all like them and take good care of them! they grow fast, and get HUGE. the israeli flavor lack bright colors as adults, but more than make up for it in size. very bulky spiders. here's a pic of the slings you are getting, very colorful and awesome looking. toothpick for reference:

 

[mandipants]

OOoooo :drool:

 

[bluefrogtat2]

here is the grandma to those.

all black,and big
andy

 

[Widowman10]

and the eggsacs are HUGE. easily 2 or even 3 times as big as hesp/mac sacs...

 

[bluefrogtat2]

yeah they are,seems like they average just over 100 too.
nice big slings.very easy to maintain and feed.
kinda male heavy but i guess that is to be expected.
great pic
andy

 

[swatc1h]

i remember when i just moved here 2 years back. my mom ridded my entire collection of widows including newly hatchlings in the front yard live. i due believe some required special care but the black tred bred like crazy!!!

 

[SNiDE]

i remember when i just moved here 2 years back. my mom ridded my entire collection of widows including newly hatchlings in the front yard live. i due believe some required special care but the black tred bred like crazy!!!

So you're now responsible for a wild population of Tred's?
Love these spiders, kept a few, got one at the moment thats growing like crazy, really robust and will eat anything

 

[buthus]

Somehow with all the widows ive kept I never got a chance to keep "normal" treds,,,the ones that retain their markings. I have been curious about their web lairs and whether they kept kills and debris to build with but suspect that they do, yet not to the extreme like L.revivensis. Revs and pallidus have carved their niche higher above the treds ...top of bushes, out in the open, using kills/debris very specifically for protection (heat/preds/etc) ...and treds seem to be more like N.American species which tend to go for structural hides lower to the ground.
Problem is... getting a group of all blackies from Israel ...collected by someone that doesnt know this and/or collected as sub-adults ...COULD land you with two species pretty much impossible to tell apart without a scope and some males to look at ...or ...maybe good observation towards any apparent differences in web building techniques. (remember though.. jars/sm.enclosures will/can force widows to build their webs in ways that LOOK a lot like other widows w/more specialized methods.)
I had a TON of those all blackies ...and believe I had both species. Mating problems and web building differences made me start a wondering what I truly had.

anywho... brings me back... gotta show some old pics!

early sac peek...

ONLY 3 days later...

 

[Widowman10]

love the hair shot :worship: i love that about this species.

mine have all drug up debris from the substrate to use in their hides/retreats, even if some were already provided. big chunks of peat were the favorite to use. cool stuff. their descent upon prey and sticky web is fascinating. big huge globs of glue, and they throw a TON of it over the prey. ferocious predators. also neat to see how miniscule the males are comparatively.

edit: also keeping the all-black israeli flavor. lack amazing markings as adults, but make up for it in size.

 

[buthus]

love the hair shot :worship: i love that about this species.

mine have all drug up debris from the substrate to use in their hides/retreats, even if some were already provided. big chunks of peat were the favorite to use. cool stuff. their descent upon prey and sticky web is fascinating. big huge globs of glue, and they throw a TON of it over the prey. ferocious predators. also neat to see how miniscule the males are comparatively.

You might want to make IDing yours a goal then. ... ...male revs palps spiral the opposite way ...gotta scope?
edit: ...the treds you have...got ones with markings also? and is that what yer talkin about above?

 

[Widowman10]

don't have a scope unfortunately. mine don't have the markings as adults. lose em about a molt or two before maturity. just all-black, hairy. got a couple of MM at the moment i could try to get checked out. pretty sure they are all treds though, have no reason at all to doubt the guy who gave em to me. he knows his stuff really really well.

 

[Widowman10]

also, these treds are dropping HUGE sacs. oblong, about 3/4" long and over 1/4" wide. big slings too.

 

[swatc1h]

So you're now responsible for a wild population of Tred's?
Love these spiders, kept a few, got one at the moment thats growing like crazy, really robust and will eat anything

i'm not sure about survival but about that time of season like now our house had attracted ants and spiders so my mom gave the special poision treatment

nice set of pix buthus. never got tired of your contribution to the community, very knowledgable.

 

[SNiDE]

Buthus, I've found lots of these in the wild around my parents place in southern Spain, and inside (the house) aswell, found both all black specimens
(http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/8364/bw3uu7.jpg)
and nicely patterned ones (http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/attachment.php?attachmentid=80032&stc=1&d=1251150784) within a few meters of each other, most if not all had nests low down in doorways or bushes in the garden, and all had lots of dead prey retained in their webs (http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/527/blackwidow1hj8.jpg)
this is probably nothing new to you but you may find it interesting, they are awesome spiders to find, but almost always around human habitation, rarely see them out in the wilds.

 

[buthus]

widowman... only info ive gathered.. 4files ... couple of pdfs are interesting reads ...but rev info only.
http://moflash.net/stuff/share/

 

[spinningspider]

hey widowman... could you kick some of these babies my way?

 

[Widowman10]

just reading an article and thought i'd bring this back up a bit to add this info:

(talking about retreats)

It is of a clearly outlined thimble-shape in the case of L. pallidus... In
contrast the retreat of L. revivensis is conical to cylindrical in form, is shallower than that of L. pallidus and is located upon the upper side of the tunnel... The web of L. tredecimguttatus contains no regularly outlined retreat

this seems to be a distinguishing feature in web-building. after observing the adult pallidus spiders constructing their retreats, i'm positive the others are treds, just by observing how all have made their retreats.