New species of giant-fishing spider, Ancylometes spec.

[Boris Striffler]

Hi Stefan,

see this thread I opened on Nutrition of spiders, might explain your experiences with Drosophila-diet.

If you have adult dead specimens available, just send them over, so I have a look to determine them.

Cheers,
Boris

P.S.: Do you collect molt and dates of the molting? Would be interesting to get these information.

 

[spinnekop]

Thank you very much Stefan and Boris.

The diet might indeed be the problem. I only fed them drosophila since I got them as baby of 2mm. Drosophila was at the start the only thing they captured. Since they eat so well, I fed them drosophila untill now.
Yesterday night my best specimen molted and was laying dead on the moss right under its molted skin. I am afraid the knowledge I have now will be too late for the one live specimen I have left.
Nevertheless, thank you so much for your answers. I didn't know about this journal of Arachnology. Thank you for the link Boris.

Greetings,
Geert

 

[Stefan2209]

Hi again,

@ Boris:

Thanks for pointing out that further infos about diet-influence in spiders. While i didn´t care to much about this topic and rarely encountered any problems, the story with the Ancylometes really woke me up. (Same went with my Scytodes spiders )

Yeah, i collect all the cast skins of my spiders, regardless the species. I only throw them away if they are severe damaged. With the dates of the molts i keep a record of the periods, that means, i write down the dates of the first specimens to molt and the last to molt. I don´t keep track with the detailed dates of every molt of every single specimen. While i used to do this in the past, the time when i got the fishers was an unfortunate one, as i had a whole bunch of tiny slings to take care for. So i had nearly every day some spider molt and got tired of it. Now, as the periods between the molts are getting bigger, i keep a closer log of it.

In this case i noticed something very interesting to me: since i switched prey not only the deaths by bad molt stopped, furthermore the periods between the molts got shorter. When i fed them Drosophilas they took something like 14-15 days. Nowadays the period is 12 days and that´s with even bigger specimen. Quite fascinating.

When i have some dead adults i´ll gladly send them towards your direction. Thanks again for the offer. I took a night of sleep over your statement about your experiences with high humidity in keeping Ancylometes, the only idea i came up with, is that this findings are species-related. As most Ancylometes in germany are sold as "A. bogotensis", which i take for wrong in many cases, i wouldn´t be too surprised to learn, there are several species which may have different tolerances to environmental settings.
To prove this theory it´d be necessary to do an ID of any specimen in germany, quite some bunch of (rather unrealistic) work. Some time ago i started collecting pics of Ancylometes specimen from different people and countries in Europe. All specimen were sold either as "A. bogotensis" or as "A. spec". I don´t know anything about colour-morphs in Ancylometes but i take it for rather unlikely that all specimens i possess pictures of are indeed all the same species....

@ Spinnekop:

I´m very sorry to hear about your losses!

As mentioned above, i had the same problem with my Scytodes specs. Everything went ok for one or two molts, than the trouble started and the spiders died during molting. I switched prey and the problems are gone, so i take this for the trigger.

The Ancylometes are to my opinion relatively easy to raise, if you give them some variety in their diet. If you have the opportunity to grab some more, give them a try and see if this works out for you.

Nevertheless i have to stress, that to my best knowledge this species hasn´t been offered before (or at least during the last years), so problems should be expected to be encountered. My spiders are apparently doing fine, but i won´t relax till they are adult, you can never know...

@ Everybody:

Pics are made and came out well, but are still to be uploaded. I will take care about this over the weekend. Watch out, they are getting bigger and turning to some strange orange-red colouration.

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[spinnekop]

@ Stefan,

Thanks for your comments. In fact, I had 10 scytodes slings too (purchased at the same time of the Ancylo slings). They ALL died within 3 weeks. I fed them only Drosophila as well. However, I didn't link these deads with my Ancylo slings because there's a difference. My scystodes slings died just like that. Some molted fine and did well afterwards but they just drop dead. Quite different from my Ancylo slings. They did well for more then a month and then ALL of them started to die right after molt.
The one remaining live specimen I am keeping now at room temperature to slow down its metabolism and give it more time for feeding different prey. Yesterday I gave it a Heteropoda venatoria sling (which I have abundantly for the moment). The Ancylo sling captured it immediately and eat it. I intend to feed it baby mealworm as well. Let's see if she will survive her molt....

However, I also have to say that I cultivated with success Holconia immanis and fed the slings only with drosophila and never encountered a problem.
I have my second generation and they are adult now.
Apparently, Ancylometes must be more sensitive to prey variation then Heteropodids.

Like you I am convinced that a lot of Ancylo species are sold as bogotensis although they are a different specie.
The specie which Vinmann is offering now is definitely not bogotensis but I suspect it's a subspecie of A. rufus. One need an adult specimen to find out for sure.
I still feel disapointed because of my bad experience. The prey variation matter with my Ancylo slings is just a theorie (it make sense). But it could be something else too.
So for now, I don't buy more species. I only want to keep my remaining sling alive and share my experience.
Stefan, please keep us informed of the status with your Ancylo slings.

Greetings,
Geert

 

[ilovebugs]

cool. I'm supprised to see your moss is doing so well. I've tried to keep most, but I always do something wrong.

 

[Stefan2209]

Molt 5

Hi again,

@ spinnekop:

I witnessed the same, some species seem to be more sensitive to nutrition as others. I raised different Cupiennius specs on Drosophila and crickets and Heteropodids and Holconias and never ever encountered problems like this.

@ Ilovebugs:

Thanks, but i really don´t earn any respect for keeping that moss alive. I just keep it very moist, not necessary for the moss itself, but for the spiders... Seems that´s all that´s needed to be done to keep this stuff going.

@ all:

Damn, they´re growing very fast now and are incredibly speedy. Had the first escapee this week. As i´m concerned about something like this happening, i use to put the box where the spider is in in a big glas-bowl, before i open it up. Well, this week this proofed to be a wise security measure. As soon as i had opened up the lid of the spider-box, the sling was out and away, luckily Anylometes can´t climb to well on very smooth surfaces, so it was an easy pickup. Would have been a different story with a Phoneutria sling...

Seems they´re turning a little bit red, note the joints:

So much for now, really shouldn´t take too long till the next update.

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[spinnekop]

EUREKA ! My Ancylo sling molted yesterday and she is in perfect health (active and very fast) which proves she is allright. She grew a lot (at least dubbel in size).
She eat 2 slings Heteropoda venatoria before molting but she refused to eat the mealworms I offered. Anyway, apparently food diversity is indeed the 'key'.
She is now big enough to feed on big flies and medium crickets. I will offer her anything from now on.

Thanks again Stefan and Boris ! :worship:

 

[Ythier]

Wonderful pics Stefan :clap:

 

[Stefan2209]

Hey you two,

@ Spinnekop:

Glad i could help out, hope it stays this way. Yesterday my last remaining Scytodes sling molted again,too. Thankfully without any problems...
Seems indeed, that some variety in the diet is the solution to this problem.

@ Ythier

Thanks for the appreciation, Eric! I´m especially glad you like the pics, cause i enjoyed your pics of the several species from french-guyane a lot.

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[Steven]

yep, very nice pictures again Stefan ! :clap:




i think i'm gonna give Thomas V. an e-mail

 

[Stefan2209]

6. Molt

Hi again,

seems growth is still speeding up. Now they´re big enough to take down medium sized prey... Guess with the next molt i´ll have to rehouse them.

This time pics of two different slings, note the slightly different colouration...

See you next molt

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[WithCerberus]

great pics and great spiders. I wish that I could get my hands on a few of those. What is the body length of the ones in the pics?

peace,
Bobby

 

[Stefan2209]

Hi Bobby,

thanks for your kind words.

I´m pretty sure someday this genus will be offered in the US, too.

The pictured specimen are now something like 0,6 inch bodylenght and 1,3 inch legspan. While they did some very good grwoing over the last two months, there´s still a lot of growing to do.

After their next molt, it´ll be time for some bigger setups, i´ll try to take some pics of the enclosures with the spiders in it. Should give a better idea of the size. While macro-shots are nice to look at (well, at least in my opinion), it´s really hard to estimate the size of an object.

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[Stefan2209]

Feeding Time

Hi there,

no new molt (yet ) but a brief look at the dining table :}

Snacking on one of the remaining micro-crickets

Now, that´s some real food:

Just because there´s some bigger prey available doesn´t mean to this spiders that they have to drop what they already got...

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[WithCerberus]

the last pic is amazing. :clap: :clap: :clap:

peace,

Bobby

 

[Stefan2209]

the last pic is amazing. :clap: :clap: :clap:

peace,

Bobby

Thanks Bobby!

I´m having a friend in switzerland who´s keeping another Ancylometes spec. His specimen are already way bigger than my are. He´s planning to do an interesting lil experiment, feeding them fish (Guppies) soon....

I really hope, he´s gonna take pics of the outcome of this experiment, should be a sight to behold, watch out...

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[galeogirl]

Wow, they're looking great! Congratulations.

 

[WithCerberus]

can't wait to see

That would be great to hear about that experiment and see some of those pics! I have been toying with the idea of trying feeder guppies for my mature fishing spiders recently too. I would love to get a shot like this one
www.isopoda.net/.../ Ancylometes/Dolomedes.html
Let us know how your friends experiment goes.
peace,
Bobby

 

[Stefan2209]

Jlo

Hey everybody,

reminds me on JLO, watch that ****!

Now it´s time for molting again, if they don´t change their cycle first specimen should start around friday, so watch out...

See ya soon

Greetings,

Stefan

 

[Stefan2209]

Old homes - new homes

Hi,

just in time for the second christmas day the first of the Ancylometes molted again. Now it´s molt no. 7 and time for some new, bigger enclosure.

To give an impression of the growing till now, today some pics of the old home and the new one...

Old one, not even 3 months in use and already too small:

New one, let´s see how fast they will outgrow from this box:

When they´re too big for the new boxes i´ll start to say goddbye to the first specimen, i´m not gonna keep all of my babies, but some breeding couples. Macros of the spiders will follow in a few days, want them to be totally coloured for comparison.

Greetings,

Stefan