Pterinochilus possibly gravid?

[rknralf]

Hi all,
As I posted in several messages prior, I received a male Pterinochilus murinus (Usambara) in the male and allowed him to mate with my large female. He mated with her on 3 seperate occassions before she decided to make a meal of him. (2 weeks ago).
Well, she completely ripped out her webbing and has since replaced it all with a fairly thick layer and has webbed herself entirely in. I can see her barely through the webbing and she has quite a large round abdomen.
Anyway, she won't come out and eat or drink and I am hoping that she will lay an eggsac.
With that said, I'm looking for information about how long a time period from mating does it usually take to lay an eggsac, and if the characterictics presented sound like she may soon prepare one.
I'm really hoping that the mating was successful and she lays eggs and that they hatch as I hated to see "Sparky" (the male) get munched.

Holley, in particular, how long after the male got eaten did yours prepare her eggsac?

Thanks!
Ralph

 

[MrDeranged]

Just to let you know usambara's don't really lay an egg"sac" per se. It's more of an egg hammock from what I've heard. If she's nice and fat and hasn't been eating more than usual, it's a very good sign that she's gravid. As to how long before she drops the eggs, it varies.

Scott

 

[Wade]

Since the eggs are not fertilized until they are laid, spiders can never truely be said to be "gravid", but hopefully she is at least "full of eggs"! There is no real set time between mating and making an eggsac. It can happen anytime between the mating and the female's next molt. If she molts w/o making a sac, all is lost.

As Scott said, the sac is not the typical, round and portable sac we normally expect. It's usually attached to various structures in the cage and looks like a really thick section of webbing. The female will often sit right on top of that area, enhancing the "hammock" effect. I think she massages the eggs rather than rolling them.

The good news is, they're generally good moms and there's no need to seperate her from the sac.

Wade

 

[Vayu Son]

><

aye, pray to the goddess of arachnid fertility. My 7 legged chilean rose is showing signs of obesity not related to food...

-V

 

[Immortal_sin]

there are too many threads...sorry I didn't see this one!
My female did the exact same thing...she ripped up all her old webbing, put it in a corner, and made a new one. It took her approx 2 1/2 months from the time she ate the male to do this. The slings emerged approx 1 month later. I'm just ballparking, since I wasn't even sure she HAD an eggsac. Her webbing was so profuse and thick I couldn't see in there. She refused all food as well. I just kept her water dish full and left her alone.
Then, last week, or whenver it was, I saw slings crawling around on her webbing.
Doesn't take long with them, once they've laid eggs.
But Scott is right, it's a hammock like contraption. No rolling an eggsac around, I guess they 'massage' it.
Apparently, my female did not do a very good job, since all the eggs at the bottom of the sac were undeveloped, and the next layer of slings were all deformed.
There may have been other factors as well, but I have no clue as to what they were