The First US Breedings of Poecilotheria subfusca Pocock, 1895 with Notes on Pre- and Post-breeding Conditioning
Page 3 of 6 | by William Korinek, Bruce Effenheim & Michael Jacobi
⇐ Previous Page | Next Page ⇒ | Issue 5 Contents | E-Zine Directory
On 26 May 2004, a mature male was placed in the enclosure with an adult female. Courtship commenced and successful mating with insertion of one palpal bulb was observed. The courtship lasted about twenty minutes, and the male was then removed and returned to his own housing. By August, the female was moved to an area where the temperatures were lower, ranging 58-65°F [14-18°C]. She did not accept food after mating and no increase in abdomen size was noticed.
By mid-October the female had completely webbed herself into her enclosed retreat and hollowed out the substrate to the bottom of the plastic enclosure. On October 27, the egg sac was seen for the first time while peering through her webbed doorway. Although TBP had experience successfully incubating egg cases removed from the female, they always left the sac with the female for about thirty days. However, considering the fact that by thirty days some egg cases are already doomed by their caregiver, and that this was their first experience with the this uncommonly bred species, Korinek opted to pull the egg case on 7 November 2004. This was the earliest he had ever taken an egg sac from a female.
The egg sac was placed in an incubator made from two 6.75 inch [17 cm] diameter deli cups. One cup with its bottom removed and cheese cloth stretched across the top was placed inside the other containing damp soil substrate. This double-cup method enables quick cleaning and watering of the substrate, and easy access to the bottom of the cheese cloth hammock. The double incubator cup was placed close to the female's enclosure to keep the temperature consistent. Until development could be felt inside the egg sac, Korinek gently rotated the sac three to six times a day.
By mid-January, Korinek could feel that the eggs were no longer free-rolling and had "budded" into postembryos, the first larval stage. On 18 January 2005, a small incision was made in the sac in order to view the nymphs and look for any infertile or dead eggs or embryos. There were not any black eggs or mold of any kind. The silk around the incision was twisted closed and rotation of the sac was continued.
On 17 February 2005, the postembryos started to molt to 1st instar. It took about four days for all visible nymphs to reach 1st instar. At this time, the egg case was left open and the nymphs would crawl out of the sac and rest on the outside, but never leaving the silken egg case. After a month the pale nymphs started to look a little darker, becoming an aged ivory color. Hairs (setae) could be seen on the legs and abdomens, and the nymphs had become quite mobile. The incubator was opened and the hammock removed. A small amount of green moss was added to the substrate and the eggsac was placed directly on the moist soil. The moss was provided as a place for the developing nymphs to escape the moist soil and support themselves during molting. TBP had previously used the method of placing 1st instar nymphs directly on the substrate with other Poecilotheria species, Ephebopus, and most terrestrial species they successfully bred. Within their first year of frequent tarantula breeding, Korinek and Effenheim had produced over fifty egg sacs and had experimented with incubators and the removal of the hammock at 1st instar, which seemed to increase the number of nymphs successfully reared.
After another month, most of the nymphs had left the egg case and were thriving on and under the moss, drinking from the substrate. It was not until April or May that the 1st instar nymphs started molting into 2nd instar spiderlings. It took about a week for all to molt, but from 55 eggs came 55 spiderlings. The temperature was kept constant throughout development, between 63-68°F [17-20°C]. Once the nymphs started to harden and were leaving the egg sac to rest upon the damp substrate, the temperature was raised to the lower seventies, never exceeding 74°F [23°C].
⇐ Previous Page | Next Page ⇒ | Issue 5 Contents | E-Zine Directory