vinegaroon behavior

[Wade]

The red will change to black after a molt or two.

Your enclosure looks pretty good. It's hard to tell, is the substrate moist at all? I usually keep the substrate somewhat moist, but I let it get dry on top, and they burrow down to their preffered humidity level.

I'm interested in how Tarcan's friend breeds them. I've had females drop sacs before, only to eat them in a few days.

Wade

 

[tarcan]

Hi Wade,

Sorry it took so long, my friend is coming at my place tonight and I will ask him a few extra questions concerning the sacs...

What he told me so far is that breeding is very easy, he normally breeds his females twice a year... he has successfully done it for at least four years that I can remember of...

He keeps the temperature between 22 and 28 Celcius and the humidity around 80%...

He says the mating courtship can seem a little violent sometimes...

He mentionned that even if you can theoricly house specimens together if the enclosure is big enough, he does not do it and only introduces the male to the female whenever he wants to attempt reproduction...

Other then that he does not do anything else special, no temperature variations or anything...

I will keep you posted on the sacs questions...

Take care

Martin

 

[Bob]

Martin,
Will you please ask you freind if medium sized vinegaroons can be sexed? I think mine is a female by looking at it's rather small pinches. The pet store has one more the same size and appears female too. ASK IF THE MALES PINCHERS ARE LARGER WHEN 2/3RDS GROWN.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[tarcan]

I will ask about the pedipalp...

Wade, my friend leaves the eggsacs always with the female and does not remove them from her... he says he never had any problems...

Were your females stressed by anything?

 

[heyjeyniceid]

OH!!!!! SO they are communal! Ive always wanted verification of this.

In my hometown in Sonora, Mexico, these things are in almost every dark hide, especially deep cracks and craters in concrete. I remeber flooding a hole in my grandmas concrete porch that was flush against the outside wall and full of rubbel. Within 5 minutes, and a rising water level, no less than 5 Vinegaroons poped out. 2 large ones, and 3 smaller ones.

last trip I took, I found 2 small ones. 1 walking in the night, and another that snuck into my granies living room.

horrible looking creatures, heh.

 

[Wade]

Thanks for all the information, Martin. It's possible the eggs I've seen were infertile, but one female was so recently captured I thought the odds were good that they'd be good. I did not disturb her at all, the only reason I knew she even had the eggs was because she made her burrow against the plastic and I could just barely peek in at her. I did my level best to avoid even touching the container, but eventually she ate it anyway.

I assumed that the sacs would have to stay since the babies crawl onto the mom's back scorpion-style after hatching. I never even considered taking it an option.

In answer to Bob's question, I don't think the different claw sizes differ much prior to the ultimate molt. I've kept a number of these through molts and have noticed they look distictly different at maturity. The pedipalps of both sexes are bigger and "boxier" (made up word) in perportion than before. If I can get some good pics of a male and female I'll post them.

Wade

 

[Bob]

Thanks Wade,
One last question. How go you know when they have had their final molt ? I would guess they can not breed until that time. I suppose I could measure them from head to end of abdomin but I don't even know that measurement.
I have two now that the season is over and suppose they could molt this winter. They are both very active !

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Wade]

It's hard to tell for sure. Looking at the overall size and size of pedipalps enables you to make an educated guess. Having kept them for about 8 years I think I've gotten the hang of recognizing matures, but I wouldn't put any money on my guesses

I always provide a deep substrate. It's good for all of them, but especially immatures. I think it helps them to molt if they can dig a burrow and seal themselves into a chamber. Since the matures don't molt, this isn't as much of a concern, but I think it probably also reduces the likleyhood of the female destoying the eggs.

Wade

 

[chuck]

im going to add some more substrate to its tank as some have said they keep theirs.
but if it never attempted to burrow b4, how does it know its too shallow?
i wet the substrate often, this little bugger better start acting the way i want it to. :}

 

[Wade]

It may not have attempted to burrow yet simply because it hasn't felt the urge to seal itself up for winter. Out of the 6 I currently own, only one is settled in for the winter. The others are still active at the surface.

Chuck's vinnie looks very well fed and I assume it's not feeding much right now, but after it molts, look out!

Wade

 

[Bob]

Wade,
Do I need to drop tank temps for winter?

 

[Wade]

I don't think there's any need to, but if breeding is your ultimate goal, it couldn't hurt. I usually just rely on the season temp flucuations in my animal room, 80's and 90's in the summer, down to low 70's and high 60's in the winter.

Wade

 

[Katy]

i got mine back in september and he spent the first two weeks of so wandering around shoveling dirt from one side of the tank to the other and back again, now he doesnt have a tunnel to stay in but prefers under the coconut half, and is still fairly active in the early morning and at night, i guess its normal for them to mess around with the dirt so much. 1 question, should i feed him more or less or the same in preparation for winter? also, how do i tell if its a male or female? i was told by the pet store guy that he's 6 months old, is it possible to tell then? heres a pic

 

[GQ.]

Originally posted by Immortal_sin
my vin is constantly pushing dirt around. She is active day and night, and will eat as much as I will feed her. They are so much more active than tarantulas, it's almost a shock

I second the active comment. I tried, unsuccessfully, to take a picture of my giant vinegaroon for the calendar contest. I absolutely could not get a shot of my female in a fixed position. She is a little tank, charging through or over or under or around any obstacle I place in her way. This shot is the best I could do. I did not enter this in the contest since the legs are blurred as a result of her walking during the photo.

 

[GQ.]

One more out of focus picture of her.

 

[Wade]

Originally posted by Katy
i got mine back in september and he spent the first two weeks of so wandering around shoveling dirt from one side of the tank to the other and back again, now he doesnt have a tunnel to stay in but prefers under the coconut half, and is still fairly active in the early morning and at night, i guess its normal for them to mess around with the dirt so much. 1 question, should i feed him more or less or the same in preparation for winter? also, how do i tell if its a male or female? i was told by the pet store guy that he's 6 months old, is it possible to tell then? heres a pic

As long as it eats, I'd say feed it. If it decides to shut down for the winter, it will probably stop. No harm in offering food, though. As with tarantulas, you don't want live prey in there if it molts, but adults don't molt. Live crix may annoy the vinegaroon if it's not hungry, however.

Hard to tell for sure from your picture, but if you put a gun to my head and forced me to take a guess (how's that for a disclaimer?), I'd say yours appears to be a mature male, based on apparent size and the perportional size of the pedipalps. Compare your animal with the one in G.Q.'s picture. His is a female, so the pedipalps are smaller in relation to the rest of the body. Can you see a difference in yours?

I'd say that animal is way older than 6 months. I collected some young ones (about 3/4" without the tail) more tha a year ago and now they're about twice that size. How big is yours? He looks like he's in the 2.5-3" range...way to big for six months!

Wade

 

[chuck]

would an increase in the temp stimulate a molt sooner?

 

[Steven]

stop posting those awsome pictures,...
the're killing me

@Katy

quite an impressive specimen you've got there :}

 

[Wade]

Originally posted by chuck
would an increase in the temp stimulate a molt sooner?

Possibly, but I've observed that they molt while in the sealed-in-the-burrow dormant stage, not during the summer.

Wade

 

[chuck]

to those who have young vinegaroons:
have yours burrowed and sealed themselves off yet? mine shows no sign of doing so, and hardly digs. spends most of its time on the cork (not b/c it dislikes the substrate, just b/c the piece of cork is huge)