Thoughts on P mettalica

[Brandon]

Just some thoughts that I shared with Tony regarding the P mettalica. Just what I think on the issue, is that they came in rather large, 1.5 inches. A very trained eye can easly sort through the males and female. So all I have to say is buyer beware.

Sincerely,

Brandon

 

[deifiler]

In a sense, as things are going the males are going to be somewhat worthless anyway. With only a select few bloodlines in now, when the males mature, how many females are there going to be ready?

EDIT: When the females are ready, in four years time or whatever, a whole new batch of these male metallicas will be available, and I presume, at a much reduced price. So are they really worth the investing?

However they do look nice, just not in the I-could-buy-a-guitar-for-the-price-of-one kind of way

 

[LaRiz]

Buyer beware is right. Actually, since you brought it up, there were *more females than males imported. Can't quite figure the ratio, but that's how it worked out. I can imagine that if you bought these late in the game, chances are you may have a male. But who's really to say?
I was afraid before they actually hit the US, 'cause I thought maybe they would've been thoroughly sorted thru and all males sent off. But that is definitely not the case, obviously.
From what was said during the sexing phase of all this, some individuals were obvious others were not.
john
*from the horse's mouth.

 

[Lopez]

Another factor to remember is that this species will almost certainly be inbrede. It won't be the first time a species is regularly inbred either....

 

[Garrick]

The inbreeding may not be such a bad thing, especially with Poecilotheria. Charpentier reported such occurences in the wild.
It'd be a nice thing to have a lot of room in the gene pool to weed out possible "defects", but I'm not sure it matters as much with arthropods as it does with mammals.
I'd say if the options with P. metallica become either inbreeding or not breeding, then of course go with the former.

On a semi-related note, I've been breeding some P. murinus that I don't sell. I'm on my 2nd generation of inbreds and haven't noticed a difference between them and the ones I breed from separate bloodlines. 2nd gen. isn't very conclusive (especially since it's only from one bloodline- I should probably try inbreeding from another pair that DOES show some visible undesirable trait), but I'm optimistic that it doesn't matter all that much.

-Garrick

 

[Code Monkey]

Re: inbreeding in arthropods

The oldest known living animal species is Triops cancriformis, originating some 300 million years ago. These, along with their relatives in Triops and Lepidurus, have populations that reproduce exclusively by parthenogenesis and even hermaphroditic self-fertilization (hows that for inbreeding?). They're still here and are definitely not compromised by their marked lack of genetic diversity.

Arthropod genomes have been refined and tweaked longer than there have been terrestrial vertebrates around. So, while mutation and the exacerbated founder effects are more likely in an inbred population, I agree with Garrick that I think it gets very overblown in regards to tarantulas. It should be avoided on principle where possible, but it shouldn't keep people from obtaining tarantulas or breeding them if alternatives aren't there.

e.g. the word is that all of the A. geniculata in the U.S. originated from a single eggsac imported into the U.S. Anyone think their A. geniculata's have problems from inbreeding?


edited for my ever present typos

 

[Lopez]

Originally posted by Code Monkey
Re: inbreeding in arthropods

The oldest known living animal species is Triops cancriformis, originating some 300 million years ago. These, along with their relatives in Triops and Lepidurus, have populations that reproduce exclusively by pathenogenesis and even hermaphroditic self-fertilization (hows that for inbreeding?). They're still here and are definitely not compromised by their marked lack of genetic diversity.

Arthropod genomes have been refined and tweaked longer than there have been terrestrial vertebrates around. So, while mutation and the exacerbated founder effects are more likely in an inbred population, I agree with Garrick that I think it gets very overblown in regards to tarantulas. It should be avoided on principle where possible, but it shouldn't keep people from obtaining tarantulas or breeding them if alternatives aren't there.

e.g. the word is that all of the A. geniculata in the U.S. originated from a single eggsac imported into the U.S. Anyone think their A. geniculata's have problems from inbreeding?

Agreed - I was just highlighting the point.

P irminia are another species where the entire captive population stems from 3 WC adults (in Europe at least), and I believe the same applies for P rufilata?