entomologic
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- May 5, 2020
- Messages
- 33
Thought I'd post about my recent experience with hatching P. Whitei (Thanks @wizentrop for IDing). The mother was wild-caught and not all the eggs made it. I had 4 total hatch within a couple hours of each other. After a few days the 4 ones that did make it left their mother's back and were subsequently isolated into their own small (2.5" square by 6.25" tall) enclosures. A fifth one did hatch almost a week later but did not stay latched onto the mother and died. Afterwards the mother spent several hours scraping off the remaining eggsac parts by rubbing against the styrofoam and then subsequently eating it which I was not expecting.
It's been about 1.5 months now and the whipplings have almost trippled in size. This week they have all been refusing food whereas before I was feeding them 3-times a week with them always immediately taking prey. I'm hoping that means they will be molting soon. They have small overhangs (Seen in the below screenshot) that they spend much of their time under. I did not have flies available at first and did offer them segmented crickets which they ate a bit of almost a full day later. I am glad I got wingless flies since they very enthusiastically hunted them down and much quicker to eat. They definitely have a strong preference for fresh prey.
Their color changes have also been interesting and can somewhat be noted on the videos below. They started as completely green when on their mothers back. They matured on there till they were black with transparent limbs that had a green hue. A couple weeks later they all were mostly solid black but with very orange pedipalps that are only now starting to really darken.
Below are the whipplings enclosures:
Closeup of one in their enclosure:
Quick video of one moving around it's whips the day after leaving its mother's back:
View attachment MAH01779.MP4
And another video about 2 weeks later of one eating a wingless fly:
View attachment whipplet.mp4
It's been about 1.5 months now and the whipplings have almost trippled in size. This week they have all been refusing food whereas before I was feeding them 3-times a week with them always immediately taking prey. I'm hoping that means they will be molting soon. They have small overhangs (Seen in the below screenshot) that they spend much of their time under. I did not have flies available at first and did offer them segmented crickets which they ate a bit of almost a full day later. I am glad I got wingless flies since they very enthusiastically hunted them down and much quicker to eat. They definitely have a strong preference for fresh prey.
Their color changes have also been interesting and can somewhat be noted on the videos below. They started as completely green when on their mothers back. They matured on there till they were black with transparent limbs that had a green hue. A couple weeks later they all were mostly solid black but with very orange pedipalps that are only now starting to really darken.
Below are the whipplings enclosures:
Closeup of one in their enclosure:
Quick video of one moving around it's whips the day after leaving its mother's back:
View attachment MAH01779.MP4
And another video about 2 weeks later of one eating a wingless fly:
View attachment whipplet.mp4