Tarantula Genetics and Inbreeding

cacoseraph

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M.F.Bagaturov said:
Yep, DAn, You're right indeed.
It is clearly shows here in Russia.
Some species here was firstly presented by several siblings from the sole eggsac but now is widespread in hobby.
They're perents were brother/sisters.
And that's all over the world.
This is not a sphear of knowledge of tarantulas somebody can tell something for sure (in fact, I dunno any seriouse examination of these except one-two cases) but some evidences are known.
also, think about everyone's ROACH COLONIES!
and crickets!
those things are MASSIVELY inbred... and they are certainly still kicking!

and don't even get me started on parthenogenics ;P
 

Sheri

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Ok, but clearly the possibility for complications is much higher than with unrelated genes otherwise animals (*usually* including ourselves) would not have an instinctive distaste for incest.

Serves a purpose, and I have no issue trusting gut instinct on this one. ;)

But yeah, I suspect that it would take a few generations to start manifesting a lot of outward problems... and it would be interesting to study the ratio of bad eggs in a related clutch vs unrelated, and to continue the observations over the period of a few generations.
 

GoTerps

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If we're talking about invertebrates, we shouldn't use vertebrates (I've seen humans, snakes, mice mentioned) as examples.

I think we would be suprised at the number of inbred lines of spiders we have in the hobby, both sister/brother and mother/son.


Just on a side note... while in grad school I started a Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Colorado potato beetle) colony from a single pair of beetles and took it through 5 generations (then got tired of it!) and saw no noticeable loss in fitness. (I killed off all the young except 3 seperate groups of brother/sister pairs from each generation)
 
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cacoseraph

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GoTerps said:
If we're talking about invertebrates, we shouldn't use vertebrates (I've seen humans, snakes, mice mentioned) as examples.

I think we would suprised at the number of inbred lines of spiders we have in the hobby, both sister/brother and mother/son.


Just on a side note... while in grad school I started a Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Colorado potato beetle) colony from a single pair of beetles and took it through 5 generations (then got tired of it!) and saw no noticeable loss in fitness. (I killed off all the young except 3 seperate groups of a single male and female from each generation)
who has had a roach colony for more than ten years? i bet at least one person on this forum has :)
 

FryLock

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GoTerps said:
Just on a side note... while in grad school I started a Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Colorado potato beetle) colony from a single pair of beetles and took it through 5 generations (then got tired of it!) and saw no noticeable loss in fitness. (I killed off all the young except 3 seperate groups of brother/sister pairs from each generation)
Sounds right to me Eric, Iv had Pachnoda marginata peregrina going for over 10 years now from one pair with no noticeable loss of vigour, to the best of my knowledge quite a few spiders have been inbred for many generations in lab's like C.salei so I would not fret about any of the inbred Theraphosid species in the hobby (which is more then you would think) disappearing just yet.

MindUtopia said:
I try to know where the spiders I have come from, you just never know when you aren't buying directly from a breeder where they may have come from, unless people are meticulous with their records.
This can be a problem unless you buy directly from the breeder you do not know if the offspring or unrelated or not. It’s not unknown for a few dealers and dealer/breeders to be selling stock from the same source or even the same sac at the same show, of course ppl may buy a few from each of them thinking there getting a unrelated group of course the biggest irony is even if there not from the same sac all the mothers and fathers of any given species could be siblings anyway.
 

AfterTheAsylum

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GoTerps said:
Hey Soulsick, don't get pissed at me, I'm not intending to be rude, but I am gonna pick on you for a bit here!

In your first post you say,

But then in your next post you say,

Aren't you contridicting youself?

You also say,

I noticed you just posted today, in another thread, that you keep the following Pamphobeteus:


Is it really fair for you to say that none of your male and female Pamphobeteus from the same clutch have been mature at the same time? How can you possibly come to that conclusion from the above collection? Maybe your speaking only of sp. "platyomma" in which you have 5 (still a small group). How big are they now? How would you be sure the females aren't mature when the males are?

Firstly, there was no contradiction. The second quote of the wild caughts was referencing that their normal maturity rates would not differ (as in that the female would still take longer than the males).

Secondly, I only have these Pamphos left. I didn't join the boards until recently and I have have significantly cut back on my stock. The platyommas are the only ones I have dealt with when raising from the same clutch, and as you can imagine, they go fast. The store I work with only deals with Ts that are significant in size for the genus. The Ts have to be around 65% of their total size for them to sell.

So no rudeness is taken, because you simply didn't factor in the possibility of you being wrong.

The Sickness
 

GoTerps

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By the way, I have many spiders from the same clutch, and none of the males have been mature at the same time as the females. These include Pamphos, Theraphosas, etc.
Secondly, I only have these Pamphos left. I didn't join the boards until recently and I have have significantly cut back on my stock. The platyommas are the only ones I have dealt with when raising from the same clutch, and as you can imagine, they go fast.
Ok, so how many groups of Pamphobeteus and Theraphosa from the same clutch have you rasied from spiderling to maturity in order to make your above observation? And how did you know the females weren't mature?
 

AfterTheAsylum

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I have had (including all clutchs I have even outside of Theras and Pamphos) about 4 per year since I started breeding. About 60% of my clutches have been blondi (maybe a little less). So I have had about 16 on blondi alone. Pampho is about 4 sacs only. But remember, I have also bought in bulk from the same clutch. I always keep about 10 to 15 percent of the hatchout for personal use. At all times I have a good amount of T ready to breed all the time.

I test out my females when they start getting around the size to mate. I supervise mating at all times. My males have always been bigger, mature faster, and become sterile (or die) by the time my females reach maturity. Other factors can be considered, but this is what I have come to. You can question as much as you want and I will keep trying to answer you as best as I can, but one thing will remain constant: my experiences will never change man.

If you want, you can check out one of my eggsac laying blondis on another thread of mine.

I don't have anything to gain by trying to trick people, and you don't either - so why act like there is a bank robbery in progress.

Let me know if you want a sling from me. I promise they weren't inbred.

The Sickness
 

Windchaser

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Soulsick said:
I have had (including all clutchs I have even outside of Theras and Pamphos) about 4 per year since I started breeding. About 60% of my clutches have been blondi (maybe a little less). So I have had about 16 on blondi alone. Pampho is about 4 sacs only. But remember, I have also bought in bulk from the same clutch. I always keep about 10 to 15 percent of the hatchout for personal use. At all times I have a good amount of T ready to breed all the time.

I test out my females when they start getting around the size to mate. I supervise mating at all times. My males have always been bigger, mature faster, and become sterile (or die) by the time my females reach maturity. Other factors can be considered, but this is what I have come to. You can question as much as you want and I will keep trying to answer you as best as I can, but one thing will remain constant: my experiences will never change man.

If you want, you can check out one of my eggsac laying blondis on another thread of mine.

I don't have anything to gain by trying to trick people, and you don't either - so why act like there is a bank robbery in progress.

Let me know if you want a sling from me. I promise they weren't inbred.

The Sickness
I believe part of the confusion comes from the fact that you are new here and many don't know your background or experience. BTW, you didn't say how long you have been breeding. Anyway, there have been many times that someone comes here stating something as a fact based on their observations and when questioned, you find out that the foundation of those observations are very limited.

With respect to your observations, you really don't know if your females are mature at the same time as the males simply because you are using a subjective guide, the size of the female, to determine when you believe they are sexually mature. It is quite possible that they are mature much earlier.
 

GoTerps

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I have had (including all clutchs I have even outside of Theras and Pamphos) about 4 per year since I started breeding. About 60% of my clutches have been blondi (maybe a little less). So I have had about 16 on blondi alone. Pampho is about 4 sacs only.
Just trying to get on the same page with you here... are you saying you've had 16 successful T. blondi and 4 successful Pamphobeteus eggsacs?

What's the link to your thread with the T. blondi eggsac? Was it successful? Was this a CB female or a WC female that droped a sac?
 
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AfterTheAsylum

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Whoops. Well it is tough to give every answer I guess when you have to say so much. I started doing breeding in 1996 - well blondi at least. I do not believe that I am using their size as a maturity level. There are sizes when when are obviously and obviously not mature. That can't be argued. I subject mine to breeding when they start moving into the "grey areas of maybe". Like I said earlier, nothing changes what I have dealt with, some others may have been different. I did say; however, that it is likely to be possible to control growth to such extent. Again, like I said earlier, that I questioned this before as well, so I went to some dealers I use. I was told the same thing that I later observed, "They mature at different rates." There are a lot of "depends" is every observation. Hell, I am sure that a lot of my care tactics would come off as one of those "factors" that may change outcomes. The answer for all is still the same to the original question though... why inbreed even if possible? All you do is invite a potential problem.

Is this thread gonna get locked now? Ha ha.

The Sickness
 

AfterTheAsylum

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GoTerps said:
Just trying to get on the same page with you here... are you saying you've had 16 successful T. blondi and 4 successful Pamphobeteus eggsacs?

What's the link to your thread with the T. blondi eggsac? Was it successful? Was this a CB female or a WC female that droped a sac?

Damn it. I keep missing you by a few minutes. Why don't you just PM me Terps? Like I said, I am doing something right. I am going to try to post a link of my offspring. Consider me (and my guys) lucky. I have actually have more success than failures in blondi, but opposite in Pamph.

I dunno the link, just look at the Blondi story that I posted. I put up a picture of the formerly pregnant blondi of mine that has laid her sac down since. All of my blondis are captive bred. I don't deal with wild caughts. I have a thread about this too. I despise wild caughts. Been there before, been burned. Umm... did I cover everything this time?

When I get a new digital camera, I will post the pics of my Ts and sacs.

By the way... I have a little breeding secret. I am not saying that it will work for everyone, but it works here. Well, maybe I should keep it. :} No hands on my recipe.:embarrassed:

If you're still curious, just PM me. I am getting tired of keeping an eye on this page.
 
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MindUtopia

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Just thought I'd throw this out there because I've just finished reading several other similar threads and can't help but say something. Why is everyone here (well, not everyone, but a vocal minority) so nasty and rude to each other? I've been reading this board for sometime before I started posting so I guess I know what to expect, but if someone who is completely new to the hobby came here and saw how we talk to each other, I know if I were them I sure as heck wouldn't join. And I definitely wouldn't want to post anything for fear that anything I had to say would get ripped apart. Even when someone comes here to ask a legitimate question, it seems like answering the question somehow gets lost in the race to berate and one up each other. There is nothing wrong with debate, but please keep it professional and act like adults. I read these boards for information and not to waste my time seeing grown people try to prove how big and bad they are. Please for the sake of those of us who actually want to get something out of these boards, please lets just act civil and if you can't, then take it to PM.

Sorry to rant, but this is the third thread in a row I've read like this, and it's starting to get on my nerves. Frankly, I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.

Thanks,
Karen
 
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