What an Unexpected SUPRISE!! :]

davisfam

Arachnoknight
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Jul 19, 2010
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Well, we woke up today to find our D. tenebrous had produced an egg sac during the night hours. We are not sure if it's fertile because she's had one molt since being in captivity. From our understanding, a female spidiie can't create a fertile egg sac AFTER molting without sexual interaction with a male. Is this true?! Or is there a possibility the egg sac is fertile?! :?

I'll post pictures later on this evening, we don't want to disturb her right away since she's most likely in "mama protective" mode at the moment. :p

ANY information concerning this species and egg sacs would be much appreciated.. THANKS! :]
 

Silberrücken

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:eek::eek::eek: WOW!!!!! :eek::eek::eek:

That is SO cool!!!! If we find info that the sac could be fertile, that will be quoite AWESOME!!!! :clap::clap::clap:

I will start researching as soon as I get back from St. Augustine. Wow, I just can't get over that! Congrats!

If the sac is fertile, please keep me in mind for at least 5 slings! :D:D:D

Can't wait to see the pics! I also can't wait to research more of these spidies, they seem to be very fascinating. I will post any info I find here later. :)

S.
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
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davisfam, it depends. some widow females can mate very close to a molt. they will shed, but will retain and produce an eggsac. don't know if that's the case in dolo's, not sure if anyone's really tried before :?
 

revilo

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hallo widowman,

that means the widow mate BEFORE being adult ??? and than it do the last molt (to adult stage) and store sperms to produce an fertile eggsac ?

how this is working ? because at first, before adult stage the epigyne is not ready to be receptive, i think. and second, at molting the juv. epigynal-structures getting changed - you can see them in the exuvia - so the sperma cant being saved.
this is only what i believe to know, maybe i'm not up to date ?!

regards, oli
 

Widowman10

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oli, yes.

a penultimate female widow will mate with an adult male. the female must be sated and very near her ultimate molt though. she will produce a sac after she molts.

this has been documented with: L. variolus, L. geometricus, L. hasselti, L. tredecimguttatus, L. pallidus. some others have probably seen this with other species as well.

it's call "intrusive opportunistic copulation"
 

davisfam

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Here are a few photo's of our Mama Fishing Spidiie from this evening, we didn't want to disturb her too much more soo we just snapped a few for now.










More Pictures:
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i11/kelseyjane10/Spiders and Such/001.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i11/kelseyjane10/Spiders and Such/004.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i11/kelseyjane10/Spiders and Such/005.jpg
(NOTE: This is a temporary 'home' for the next 48 hours)

-Thanks for the info friends, we've had quite the busy day but I'll research more tomorrow and update if I find any helpful documents or other information. :)

P.S. If the egg sac is fertile, we'll be keeping a few slings, of course! :p
As for the rest, better speak up now as Silberrücken has because these beautiful giants will prob. go quickly! Who doesn't want a huge spider that's VERY docile?! LOL! :D
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
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well, she sure is guarding it and carrying it around, so that might be a good sign. :clap:
 

Silberrücken

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davisfam, would you be interested in a sling trade? :D:D:D

Beautiful pics, btw! :clap:

I have done some searching, as far have found nothing about what we want to know... :wall: I'm still reseaching, tho!

Here's to hoping your Mama's new sac is fertile! :clap::clap::clap:
 

revilo

Arachnoknight
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Feb 2, 2010
Messages
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hi widowman,

i appreciate your answer a lot, because what i like most is to learn something new - espacially about spiders.

but my research was without success.
only informations i found was that adult males guard immature females at her webs and wait until this females have the last molt to maturity - and than mate them, not before. reported for example here : Segev, et. al., 2003. JoA 31:379-393. and in this older work : Ross and Smith, 1979. JoA 7:69-77.

please could you do a favour to me and give me the source of your mentioned works ?!

thanks a lot, oli
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
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i dig a little. i have some other sources i'm holding back for now ;)
 

Widowman10

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i wait in suspense ;)

ciao oli
sorry been busy. don't worry, they will come. ;) i have about 6 links so far, but i'm still looking for the official paper on it. it's eluding me at the moment.
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
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alright, found what i was looking for (was trying to find something more 'official' than the 6 or so links i found with proof from unofficial sources ;)).

this was from the vancouver bulletin:

OPPORTUNISTIC MATING WITH JUVENILES CIRCUMVENTS FEMALE CHOICE IN CANNIBALISTIC REDBACK SPIDERS


THERMOGÉNÈSE SAISONNIÈRE CHEZ UN ECTOTHERME – SE RÉCHAUFFER POUR SE REPRODUIRE
Andrade, Maydianne C.B. (Integrative Behaviour & Neuroscience Group, University of Toronto Scarborough)
Biaggio, M. Daniela (Integrative Behaviour & Neuroscience Group, University of Toronto Scarborough)
here's the good stuff:

Under sexual conflict, fitness interests of males and females are opposed. Male and female tactics are typically matched, but outcomes may more closely approach the fitness optimum for one sex at different stages of sexual interactions. In Australian redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti), large cannibalistic females have strong control over male reproductive success. Here we show that males overcome female control when they mate juvenile females by breaking through the juvenile’s exoskeleton. Late in their final instar, and in the absence of external genitalia, juvenile females develop adult sperm storage organs. In laboratory trials, males mounted these latestage juveniles, used their fangs to tear the juvenile’s exoskeleton and copulated in 85% of cases. Females mated as juveniles moult normally and produce viable eggs as adults. Males that mate juveniles do not court, nor adopt the typical self-sacrificial mating posture of this species. Nevertheless, juvenile females show no signs of discriminatory behaviours typical for adult females. In nature, males cohabit with juveniles frequently, especially at high population densities, and up to 12% of field-collected females had been mated in this way. We propose this may be a widespread, but previously unrecognized, density-dependent male mating tactic that circumvents female choice.


and here's the link if you want to read 167 pages...(snooze)
http://www.csz-scz.ca/documents/bulletins/Vancouver_2010_bulletin_final.pdf



:D



does that explain it a little better revilo? hopefully that helps!
 
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davisfam

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Soo, back to the OP, please! ;)

After doing a little investigating, we found that the species D. albineus can be characterized by five prominent "W's" as opposed to D. tenebrosus which has three "W's" on the dorsal side of the specimen's abdomen. If this information is true, we may have mis-ID'd our Fishing spidiie. Our big gal has five "W's", not three. The D. albineus species is also known to be grey/green in color and have white tuffs of "hair" both in which our gal has as well.

Does anyone know anymore information that would help with an ID?! :?

Photo's of our Fishing spidiie can be found below, if more are need, please just let us know and we'll post them ASAP! Thanks! :]
 

Silberrücken

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D. albineus??? :eek:

That is top of my Wish List... :drool:

Hmmm... I've only seen the grey/whitish colorform of these along the Ocklawaha River.... :? My Dad used to try to scare me with them, LOL! {D

I will spend Sunday looking for any info I can find about these.

Also I haven't found any info about whether her eggsack is possibly fertile. I've hit dead-end after dead-end on this.... :wall::wall::wall:

S.
 

Widowman10

Arachno WIDOW
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sorry i got a little side-tracked. at least i provided semi-pertinent info about mating before molting and possible fertilization of eggsacs :D even if it was a different species. don't know if that carries over.


how soon after you got her did she molt? if it was more than a week or so, i would question the fertility of the sac.

great spider either way!
 

davisfam

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Widowman10; No problem, it happens to the best of us! ;) And we caught her about 1-2 weeks before she molted and she hasn't molted since. Thanks for the information regardless, it's always appreciated! :]

Silberrücken; We are going to do more research tomorrow as well but from the characteristics aspect, our gal just might be a D. abineus which would make us VERY happy! Especially, if this egg sac proves to be fertile! :D

And no, we haven't found any new information regarding the fertility of her egg sac either! :confused: It's hard to find those sort of documents via the internet, it's rare we stumble across legit and descriptive information. I'll keep searching considering tomorrow is our 'Lazy Sunday', LOL! :p
 

davisfam

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Did anyone happen to find any information regarding the D. albineus over the weekend?! :?

We haven't had much time but from what we did research, we had 0 luck with any new information! :confused:

Does anyone have any documentation, etc?! It sure would be appreciated! :D

(Please excuse my misspelling of D. 'albineus' in the previous post, whoops!)
 
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