Unsuccessful: P. irminia mating attempt

[funnylori]

These guys tried for more than 20 minutes. The male kept wanting to take the female from the rear or the side. She's a little small anyway, so the male is going out on loan. Meet Nigel and Kracken.

 

[Stylopidae]

She looks fat to me, too...could she possibly be in premoult?

 

[funnylori]

Maybe, she molted a few months ago, so she could be due. I don't really remember what day it was, except I confirmed she was female. I am pretty sure her last molt was in September.

 

[Stylopidae]

Maybe, she molted a few months ago, so she could be due. I don't really remember what day it was, except I confirmed she was female. I am pretty sure her last molt was in September.

She looks like she has a bit more growing to do, but I'd expect more than 4 months between moults for a specimen of this size...so I'd say premoult is doubtful.

Good luck with the babies. I'm looking for a female irminia myself so when I get that, I'll be picking up a few slings of this species for my own breeding project.

Keep good notes and I'll probably end up picking your brain one of these days.

 

[funnylori]

She does look pretty juicy. You can see yellow through her hairs, so she isn't in premolt I suppose. She is in that terrible phase when the molts begin spreading out by months and months... I'm always in suspense. I almost prefer the little ones because they usually molt more frequently.

Mike fed her a large roach the other day. He was given orders to fatten her up. She is about 4 inches or so in legspan. I'm going to give it another try before shipping her boyfriend out.

Feel free to pick my brain. Just know, I put them in neutral territory, and it was more like "Chase the buggers for 30 minutes with 2 friends to help wrangle." I ended up having to put the lid on the box so they wouldn't get out again, and then I felt like I had defeated the purpose of all my hard work. At least I could see from all sides pretty much unhindered.