VukSRB
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2019
- Messages
- 96
Friend has H. Gigas communal, just rehoused them and all 5 were there after 10 months.
Neoholothele incei communal FAIL :/
- Thread starter BobBarley
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2011
- Messages
- 1,337
What species was it?
MBArachnids
Arachnoknight
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2019
- Messages
- 249
I don't have much input here since I am not a believer in communal and I don't need that kind of drama in my life.
My 2 cents: A few years ago my dad was in charge of the road development in Cameroon, I went there as a chance to see the country and to give him a visit since he worked on a 8 month basis (8 months there 1 month back).
He proceeded to take me into a forest area with a local guide the one weekend and it was torture
I did however manage to tell the guide I was looking for spiders and he took me to a few spots that offered me a look into the amazing spiders they have, particularly the "Kite Spider", Gasteracantha versicolor that we saw everywhere. Finally he took us to a spot that had many holes in the ground, quite close to one another as well. I assumed it was what I have been looking for and I was right, it was T's, H. gigas to be exact.The guide spoke broken English and many times we relied on hand gestures. I was able to lure out a few of them but some holes you could tell were abandoned. I got the message across and the guide did make the hand gesture and indicated that they do in fact eat each other at times. He was very clear on the fact and the hand gestures he made with his fingers indicating the fangs and his other hand indicating the spider, it was quite obvious. I could not get the message across as to why they would burrow so close to each other so someone on here could possibly answer that. (I saw burrows as close as 2 feet from one another) I made the assumption that in that particular instance it was because it was about 6-10 feet from a stream with the flood indication lines being 1 foot or less from the closest burrow.
The remarkable thing (took long to get here) was when it started getting darker some of the T's started to move, I tested a few holes so I knew where T's were to some degree and I mostly saw other T's on the edge of another burrow with no indication of it being attacked. Our light source drew in a lot of bugs around the burrows and that might have had an effect on the amount these T's moved in that particular event.
That was my 1st hand experience and although not as amazing as many other peoples it was still fascinating to see these in the wild. I asked the guide about them swimming since I have heard of many accounts where they enter the water of their own free will but the guide thought I was talking about the local people and he made it very clear he can swim
I just want to make it clear, yes they were in very close proximity to each other.
I do not believe this counts as a communal in the wild since every burrow I investigated was leading away from other burrows. (I do not believe these were connected at all underground)
Supporting my argument is that the person actually living there told me in so many words that they do in fact catch each other on occasion. I know I said the T was wandering to the edge of another burrow but you have to understand that 1 observation is hardly evidence, the guide lives there and is in contact with the forest 24/7.
I wish I had gone into the forest a few more times as I would have loved to see burrows of individual T's where they are not in proximity to each other just to get a clearer picture but the next day I was so sun burnt and full of insect bites I just couldn't muster up the motivation.
My conclusion is that they tolerate each other but given the correct conditions they will feast on each other as was indicated to me.
I rarely have the chance to talk about T's I have observed in the wild so apologies for the long post and thank you if you took the time to read through it