Pamphobeteus sp. "Santo Domingo Goliath" Timeline Thread

[BobBarley]

Fire Tree (0.1) molted again! She's now about 4.5".

Fire Tree 5/20/17


Here you can see how much girth she gained since her last molt:


As you can see, the carapace markings are fading significantly, even in this extremely freshly molted stage the markings are a faded, pale orange color. Her brother, Mango, is not even in premolt yet. Mango's carapace markings are still bright pink/purple and it has been 2 months since his last molt. And yes, I changed out Fire Tree's water dish after the photo.

 

[BobBarley]

So Mango just molted... I think I was wrong about its sex. Here's the molt:

I'm an idiot. @cold blood , female right?

Mango 5/25/17

It got very defensive since it's last molt and was masticating the air.

Mango 5/25

About 5".

Mango's carapace patterning is much more pronounced then Fire Tree's. If they are both female, this must be individual variation. I'm going to try and check Fire Tree's molt to make sure I didn't mess up its sex.

 

[BobBarley]

Here's Fire Tree's last molt's spermatheca...

You guys see what I see right? They are both female?? And why do the spermathecae have different shapes? Is Mango's just more developed?

 

[BobBarley]

Owwwwwww... Ok, I'm truly an idiot. I was just rehousing Mango, and it got wayyyyy more defensive than I first thought. Needless to say, I got complacent while rehousing it and it sort of "bit" me. A weird bite, but a bite nonetheless. It slipped and landed on my hand. It used it's fangs to hand on to my middle finger so as not to fall. I remained calm and lowered my hand slowly onto the sub. It then proceeded to slightly masticate my finger and inject a bit (feels like a bad ant sting) of venom into my finger. Not very bad. Happened like 10 min ago and right now just a bit of itchiness, a bit of swelling, and a very tiny bit of numbness. Felt I should document this. :/ I'll definitely rehouse with more precautions next time.

When both specimens are adults, I'll compile all the info in this thread, including little tidbits of stuff I've experienced with these guys (stridulation, etc.) to clean it up a bit.

Edit: About 2 hours after initial "bite" and I have no symptoms at all.

 

[Ran]

Sorry about the bite...both females for sure! Congrats

 

[BobBarley]

Sorry about the bite...both females for sure! Congrats

Haha, I'm super sick right now so reflexes aren't great either. Oh well, that'll teach me to rehouse with more caution next time. Thanks for the vote of confidence on both of them being female.

Interesting that there's so much individual variation! Mango is a good .5"-1" larger than Fire Tree, and their feeding schedule has been nearly identical. On top of that, Fire Tree's carapace patterning is all but gone (only a few white/greyish lines left) while Mango's carapace patterning has just gotten more pronounced with purple/pinkish stripes. Have you experienced this with other Pamphobeteus?

 

[Olan]

I'm going to say I think Mango is a male. Males sometimes have little bulbs that can look like tiny spermathecae. The fact that his carapace pattern is getting brighter suggests male as well.

 

[BobBarley]

I'm going to say I think Mango is a male. Males sometimes have little bulbs that can look like tiny spermathecae. The fact that his carapace pattern is getting brighter suggests male as well.

Yeah, the carapace patterning and the growth rate is part of why I originally suspected male for Mango... I'll wait for the next molt just in case, before I set anything in stone.

 

[Ran]

Time will tell for sure...at this size, do a ventral check, males will have the telltale dot.

 

[BobBarley]

Fire Tree molted! And it can't be any plainer....

Fire Tree 7/31/17

Female!

Stretched out, the molt is a bit more than 5", the spider itself is probably close to 5.5-6", fully stretched out.

Fire Tree 7/31/17:


As you can tell, even this freshly postmolt, the carapace marking is almost gone. As @Exoskeleton Invertebrates noticed in this locality, the abdomen patterning is still visible.

 

[BobBarley]

Mango molted! It's a female!

Mango 8/30/17:

However, spermatheca shape is fairly different from Fire Tree. You can see Fire Tree's spermatheca in the post above^. Is this individual variation or something more... sinister? @cold blood @viper69 @Exoskeleton Invertebrates
She barely gained any size at all though from what I can gauge...

Mango 8/30/17:



It's abdominal and carapace patterning has both decreased drastically.

Mango 8/30/17:



Here is the old exuvium stretched out.

Mango 8/30/17:

 

[spotropaicsav]

Beautiful Mango is looking ripe!

 

[viper69]

what do you notice that is different,and WHICH picture are you comparing to Bob, you have a couple now hah.

 

[BobBarley]

what do you notice that is different,and WHICH picture are you comparing to Bob, you have a couple now hah.

Fire Tree 7/31/17:


Mango 8/30/17:

 

[viper69]

The only thing I can tell from the images is there's a membrane of sorts in one, and not in the other picture. The pics are of different sizes/mags etc, and thus cannot be compared equally by me at least.

 

[John Chu]

I love this thread!