Poecilotheria tigrinawesseli

[Swifty]

Success!!!
I'm very happy to report the first captive production of P. tigrinawesseli in the U.S.!!

Pairing took place in Oct. of 2010.
Female produced an eggsac in Feb. 2011.
Pulled the eggsac after 41 days on March 22nd, 2011.

When opening the eggsac, I first saw the black eggs sprinkled throughout the sac. At postembryo stage,many of the nymphs had a black egg either stuck to it, or in it's chelicerae. It was obvious that the ones with black eggs in their chelicerae, had filled their abdomens with the eggs contents. I counted approx. 60 eggs, (including infertile). Once I had soften then for a few days with slightly damp paper towel in the incubator, I carefully removed anything infertile. After cleaning I ended up with 36 postembryo nymphs, and I could see a few of their legs darkening for an upcoming molt. They molted into 1st instar on March 26th, 2011. I lost 4 during this molt. I was amazed that on April 5th, their legs began to darken again, and on the 8th, they began to molt into 2nd instar. I didn't lose any during this molt. On April 17th, again their legs began to darken, at this time I separated them into 50 dram vials. Most have molted at this time (April 22nd) into 3rd instar. I'm extreamely impressed at the size of the spiderlings, with most at a solid inch in legspan. I'll start feeding shortly!


Swifty

http://www.swiftinverts.com/pix/P.tigrina-eggsac1.jpg
http://www.swiftinverts.com/pix/P.tigrina-eggsac2.jpg
http://www.swiftinverts.com/pix/P.tigrina-eggsac3.jpg
http://www.swiftinverts.com/pix/P.tigrina-eggsac4.jpg
http://www.swiftinverts.com/pix/P.tigrina-eggsac5.jpg
http://www.swiftinverts.com/pix/P.tigrina-eggsac6.jpg

 

[Zoltan]

Moderator's Note

OK, four posts have been removed so far that were not breeding reports, but comments/congratulations. Please note (from the rules):

"If you wish to discuss anything in these breeding reports, please do not post it here, as this forum is just for the reports. You can post it in the appropriate forum and refer to it there or contact the user either via PM or email."

You can PM or e-mail Swifty to congratulate, but don't post here unless you've bred P. tigrinawesseli yourself and are posting a breeding report.

Thank you.

 

[tarantulas.com]

We have Wessel's Tiger Ornamental (Poecilotheria tigrinawesseli) 2nd instars happily roaming their mother's enclosure. This species has an extra developmental stage so the 3rd instars will be ready to go in a couple of weeks or so.

Between Alex Orleans and I we have produced more than one hundred Pokie sacs, as separate operations and since we have partnered, but this is our first of this species.

The interesting thing about this was how persistence paid off. This is our ONLY female. She was one I had purchased from the first import of this species back when I was still in Nashville operating solo as The Spider Shoppe. When I sold my entire Pokie collection to Alex upon moving to Washington to work for him, she was accompanied by a juvenile male and when he eventually matured we made our first attempt. But she was still pretty young/small and that mating wasn't successful. Since then, we have acquired other ultimate males and mated her, but she would molt post-mating and the male would just keep cohabitating with her. We would keep with our regimen of post-mating cooling that has resulted in thousands upon thousands of baby tiger spiders over the years. All the while the male would remain in the female's cage. Eventually the male would perish or weaken and become prey and be replaced by another. The same cycle of cohabitation, mating, cooling, molting, additional cohabitation would take place and finally she produced a sac.

Congratulations to Kelly Swift who apparently beat us to the punch by about one month! But we are very pleased to have produced the second sac in the US and will be holding back about half of it to expand our breeding of this species. This Pokie has a patrynomic specific epithet honoring that great tiger spider breeder Henrik Wessel Frank, so it is doubly cool.

All the best, Michael

PS: For those interested I will post an addendum with the pertinent dates and a photo later.

---------- Post added at 11:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

A couple of more comments:

1) We haven't counted the nymphs yet, but there appears to be at least 80 thriving babies.

2) Our sac was produced on February 22, almost exactly two weeks after Swifty's.

3) Will bring my camera to work tomorrow for a snapshot of beaming mother and her spawn.

female Poecilotheria tigrinawesseli (Wessel's Tiger Ornamental) with some of her progeny.

After snapping this image I tossed a dubia to her, which she caught mid-air, and the nymphs scattered everywhere. There are quite a few. When we separate the s'lings into individual deli cups I will post the total number.

 

[Protectyaaaneck]

Successful!

The female was paired a few times in late 2010 with the same male. The eggsac was produced on 4/28/11, and opened on 5/23/11. At this point there was a mix of both eggs and eggs with legs. 1st instar was reached on 6/8/11, 2nd instar on 6/21/11, and finally 3rd instar on 7/7/11. There was a slight problem with the incubator between 2nd and 3rd instar which resulted in a few dying off and a few getting stuck. I don't think I had the humidity high enough within the first set of incubators which resulted in the delayed molts and molting problems. However, with that said, I still wound up with a final count of 52 3rd instars after moving them to the second incubator. They're all being housed communally right now and are doing great!

 

[Protectyaaaneck]

Successful!

This marks the second good eggsac produced by my female. She was also paired with the same male that I used in the first go around last year. She was paired a few times before eventually making the male a snack. The matings took place around Jan/Feb and the eggsac was dropped on 4/4/12. The eggsac was pulled on 4/29/12 and was full of undeveloped eggs. I placed them in the incubator and on 5/14/12 they began to emerge. 1st instar was reached on 6/12/12, 2nd instar on 6/25/12, and 3rd instar on 7/1/12. Although there were around 20 2nd instars, only one of them made it to 3rd instar. I think the reason for the low count and lost slings are due to the eggsac being pulled too early. Temps were hovered steadily between 70-80, and the humidity within the incubator was near 100%.

The eggsac:

Eggs:

EWL's:

1st instars:

The only one that made it to 3rd instar:

 

[martin lees]

Poecilotheria Tigrinawesslli

SUCCESS!!!!!!

Special care
Female was given a large Dubia roach once a week prior to pairing.male was bought from Greece.

Pairing
Male was shared tanked for one night, then introduced to the female on 1st December 2011.
He co-habited for one week and was removed.
I put him in again early January and he lasted untill early Febuary,when he became a meal.

Post mating care
The temp in her tank were around 75'f from December 2011 untill Febuary 2012.
Early March 2012 her tank was soaked and then sprayed once a week therafter.
Late March I placed her tank on the top shelf at around 82'f and she was eating one large Dubia roach a week.
After the BTS show on 20th May 2012, Ray Gabriel provided me with some invaluable advice.
That evening I placed a pillow case over her house of spiders 8x8x14 enclosure, and to my surprise she webbed herself into her retreat and produced an eggsack on 31st March 2012.

Time to eggsack
6 months

Pulled sack
At 4 weeks on 28th June 2012, 3 bad eggs and approximately 50-60 N1's

6th June moulted into N2's

16th June moulted in to spiderlings.